Transcript for:
Galatians 5:2,12 -Faith Working Through Love- Pastor Rick Beaudry 2025-10-19

Galatians chapter five verses two through 12. Would you please stand with me as we read God's holy word together? Behold, I Paul say unto you that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ has become of no effect unto you, whosoever you are justified by the law, you're fallen from grace. For we through the spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ, neither circumcision avails anything nor uncircumcision, but faith which works by love. You did run well. Who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not of him that calls you. A little leaven leavens a whole lump. I have confidence in you through the Lord that ye will be done none otherwise minded, but he that troubles you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be. And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross ceased? I would they were even cut off which trouble you. Father, thank you for your holy word. We're excited to get into your word this morning. I thank you for each face that's here, Lord, each person that's here. Bless Cathy and the Sunday school. Thank you for helping us to run the race. Lord, it's a long marathon race, and, we just thank you for your faithfulness in helping us as we approach the finish line. Lord, we wanna finish well. We wanna bring glory and honor and praise unto your name. Lord, we wanna hear you say, well done, thou good and faithful servants. You've been faithful over a few things. Gonna make you rulers over much, Lord. Enter into the joy of the Lord, each and every one of us, Lord. That place that we fit within your millennial kingdom as you're preparing us now. So bless now, we pray. Build us up. Strengthen us. Build your church, Lord. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Would you please be seated? So if we're to take the book of Galatians, the letter to the churches of Galatia, if we were to divide it up, chapters one and two we studied were the personal section of the book. Chapters three and four were the doctrinal, section. And now we begin the practical application section in chapter five and six. So there's a problem and Paul is the one that planted this church, the Judaizers, these guys from Jerusalem are coming down and they're undermining the gospel. They're imposing their circumcision or their law upon the people. So Paul, in chapters one and two, is personal trying to appeal to them from a personal standpoint. This isn't what I taught you. How did how did you how are you bewitched so quickly? You know? And then he goes into three and four, and he shows doctrinally even using examples from the past of Abraham and Sarah, of Hagar and Ishmael, and Isaac and all. And so he's he's reaching back from Mount Sinai in Jerusalem, and and he's really trying to open it up so that they can understand. And now with that knowledge, with that understanding, now he's saying, this is how you should walk. Don't walk according to the law. You'll be sterilized. You'll be it'll you out. So he's gonna show the importance of love here, the importance of walking by faith. Christianity is a walk of faith working through love. And so faith working through love, and so without faith, we number one, we fall from grace. And so these guys have been abandoning their faith. They've been embracing law of Moses, and so Paul gives four consequences of unbelief. Without faith, we can't please God, for they that come to must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Going back into Judaism or or trusting in yourself is unbelief. And so without faith, number one, we fall from grace. Notice verse two. Behold, I Paul say unto you that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. So circumcision is a badge. It's a symbol of Judaism. It's the keeping of the mosaic law. So originally, this symbol was given to Abraham as a means of identification that Abraham, you know, in thee, all nations of the earth would be blessed. And not only that, but I'm I'm not only gonna bring forth the seed that I spoke of in in Genesis three fifteen, the seed of the woman, the virgin born son of God, but this virgin born son of God, not an angel, is gonna need a nation, gonna need a family to migrate through. And so as we look at Matthew one, we look at Luke three, we see his pedigree. Well, God started with a man. The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong on behalf of a man whose heart is perfect toward God. And Abram was the son of a an idolater, that of Terah, his his father. He came from an area of Ur of the Chaldeans of Babylon, and God chose him when he's about 75 years old and his cousin, Sarah, and the two of them were to immediately leave everything and go and follow the Lord where he was gonna take them, and God was gonna make a nation from them. God was gonna bring forth a people from them because down the road, the this people would be distinctly different than all the other nations around in that the Messiah is a Jew. So Abraham the Jew, the Hebrew. So in chapter 15 of Genesis, the Lord gives the the covenant of the land, and we see, so many people fighting over the land and all, but it's a no brainer. Israel has been given that land by God, and they're distinctly different than everyone around them. There's Arabs and other Persians and people around them, but that land is distinctly, Israel's, and the people are distinctly different, and the moniker, the one of the symbols that the Lord passed from Abraham onto Moses in Exodus 12 was the sign of the circumcision, the cutting away of the foreskin. Now, the cutting away of the foreskin was just the outward. The real cutting away is the foreskin of the heart, and so Abraham being a man of faith, a friend of God, a man of faith, it's it's the application of that cutting away the foreskin and that, Lord, I'm cutting away the flesh. I'm gonna be a man of the spirit, and Lord, I'm gonna walk by faith with you. And that's the real impetus of the, rite of circumcision that Abraham went through is that he would be separated, he'd be set apart, and God was gonna bring forth the Messiah through him and the Abrahamic covenant, and that's why we, look at Genesis 12 verse three, got where God says, I'm gonna bless those that bless you, curse those curse you. It's not that the nation of Israel more moral than anybody or better than anybody. It simply means that God has chosen them as a people to bring forth the Messiah, and that his seed, through the Messiah, all nations of the earth would be blessed by grace through faith alone. Not natural pedigree because the true Israel of God are those who believe. So in Isaac shall thy seed be called. So there's a whole lot of Jews that have the outward sign on their body who are walking according to Judaism and are not saved. They're walking according to the law, just religious, if you will. So Paul's trying to get through to the Galatians who are not Jewish, they're Gentiles. You don't need to become a proselyte. You don't need to become a Jew. You don't need to be circumcised and hold to the letter of the law. There's 613 precepts in the Old Testament law, and you can't keep them. You can't you can't be righteous enough. And so why would you go that way? Why would you fall into this deception, that of the judy Judaism of Paul's day? It missed the whole principle of faith in God. Circumcision became a symbol of one of trusting of of one trusting in himself in his own ability to keep the law. That's what circumcision became, and it wasn't supposed to be that. So Christ will profit you nothing, he says. So if you try to mix the law with grace, if you trust Christ plus something else, you're not saved. So a tragic thing I saw on social media this week where a guy, a reporter on Air Force One asked President Trump if he thought he was going to heaven. And President Trump is priding himself on bringing peace, you know, all over the world, in Gaza and Ukraine and all that, and he very humbly said he didn't know if he's done enough yet to make it into heaven. And I put on there, somebody please help this man. Somebody please show him Ephesians two eight and nine because, you know, for by grace are you saved. You know? Not of works lest anyone would boast. You know? So you can't get there by working, president Trump. You can't get there by good deeds, doing enough good things. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God's eternal life through Jesus Christ the Lord. So I want to preach the gospel to him. Get him to understand the gospel, you know. Quit carrying that big burden of trying to save the world, you know, and be the big peacemaker all. And and it's just tragic. I mean, I may disagree with the man, but I want him I want him truly to be saved. I want him truly to know Jesus. You know? I don't want him to go through this thing, you know, outside looking in, so to speak, and hear one day the Lord say, away from me, I never knew you. Did a lot of great things, but I never knew you. Christianity a relationship, president Trump. Do you understand what that means? You know? And so I really I really wanted Greg Laurie or somebody, all these spiritual guys that are around him, you know, explain it to him because it's tragic out of his own mouth there, his admission that he's trying to be good enough. That, hey, if I get peace in Ukraine, maybe I'll make it into heaven. Boy, that's a that's a that's a tall order. You know? I mean, I can't even get peace in my home one day. I mean, come on. You know? It's crazy. So Christ will profit you nothing. So if you trust in in Christ plus something, it doesn't work. You have to salvation by grace through faith alone in Jesus Christ. He says, verse three, for I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law. So it's all or nothing. And James, has really leaned toward legalism, the brother of our Lord, he he tended to lean very strictly in that way. And, but in James two ten, he says, whosoever shall keep the whole law, the whole law is 613 precepts and the Mosaic law. Now remember, the time of Christ, they also had what's called the Talmud, not just the Torah, the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, and the Psalms and the prophets. But the religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, they were getting much of what they were imposing upon the people from the Talmud, was rabbis, like commentaries of the rabbis. So they would interpret and impose upon the people a burden that, Peter said in Acts 15 that neither we nor our fathers were able to bear the burden of the law, of keeping of the law. And they would make things up, the the tradition of washing hands and Sabbath and how far you could go. And if if your donkey fell into a ditch, could you save your donkey, but you can't save a person, you know, that sort of thing. Jesus tried to reason with them. But James says, whosoever should keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he's guilty of all. So what's the wage of sin? What do you get if you sin, if you miss the mark? So sin is missing the mark. So if I'm gonna shoot an arrow at a target back there, if I hit the bull's eye, I haven't sinned. How many times am I gonna be able to do that throughout my lifetime? If I miss one time, I'm guilty of the whole law, and the law condemns me. The law's designed to condemn me. The law's designed to shut my mouth because God wants salvation to not be something that's earned or a performance from you and I, but something received by grace through faith alone. So there's no boasting. Nobody can boast. Well, I tried harder. I shot straighter. I I worked more, you know. I'm the greatest president ever. Look at me. No. Rest. Rest in Jesus. He said, come on to me all you that labor and heavy laden. I'll give you rest. You guys are working too hard. This burden's too big. You can't you can't fulfill the law. The law is there to be a tutor, a guide, a pedagogue, to show you your need of Christ, to back you into a corner where you have no way out except to cry out, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. That's it. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Right? And so it's a gift and there's no boasting, and we can't lose it. We're not gonna lose the gift. If if we don't perform after receiving Christ, then we we sin, and we and we know that we all do, then you don't strive again to try and make up for it by by doing some works to make up for the sins you committed. You rest. You rest. What did Jesus say on the cross? It is finished. The work's finished. He did the work. He fulfilled the law. He lived the perfect life. And God's fully just in punishing his son in our place and pouring down his wrath upon him rather than us, that sin would be paid for because God's just and holy. It had to be paid for. So he that knew no sin became sin. He cried out, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? Why are thou so far from my roaring? At that moment in time, the father separated himself from his son and poured out his wrath upon his son. And he says in Psalm 22, I'm a worm in no man. The sins of the whole world are placed upon him. So he that knew no sin, he was tempted in all points like we, and yet without sin. He said to his enemies, the people who are trying to destroy him, which of you can convict me of sin? Search the scriptures for, in them, you know, it speaks of me. The volume of the book is written to me. You think you have eternal life and they are they which testify of me. The whole book's about Jesus. The whole book's a story of redemption, a story of God's love, illustrated with the life of Ruth and Boaz, a a Moabites gentile bride to Boaz, our kinsman redeemer. And we estranged from the Lord, we become the bride of Christ as Jesus, our kinsman redeemer, pays the goel price, the price which is his blood to purchase us out of sin, out of bondage, out of hell, out of death, out of all the bad things that awaited us in judgment. So the police officer doesn't care that you haven't committed a crime last week or this week, that you didn't perjure yourself, that you are exemplary you have you've had a previous exemplary driving record. The police officer caught you going a 103 in a 25 zone, a a school zone, and he got you on radar the whole thing. And he doesn't wanna listen to you talk to him about how you've never murdered anybody, you've never stolen or perjured yourself, or or in the past week, you've been been a good boy, you know, you did everything right. No? When you when you approach it in that way, when you break the law, you're guilty of all. He's gonna he's gonna, bring the citation against you for that which you've done. Now, if you miss on one point, you're guilty of all with God. So you don't want a legal performance relationship with God. Nor can you reach a place on a certain day where the great day of atonement of Yom Kippur where you give a bunch of good stuff to people to kinda lessen the load of all the sins you committed earlier in the year, you know. Nor can you go and pay a priest money to get your family members out of purgatory because they just weren't quite good enough. But if I get this priest to pray, then maybe he can get my parents out of purgatory before they go to hell. There's no such thing as purgatory. That's a false doctrine. It's appointed on all men once to die and then the judgment. You got till death to receive salvation, which is a free gift. So by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Ephesians two eight and nine. And, and so James is making it clear here, you're a debtor to the whole law. He says verse four, Christ has become of no effect unto you, whosoever you are justified. Remember that word justified just as if I've never sinned. Justified by law. How can the law justify me? Ye are fallen from grace. You've fallen from the grace. Grace is a higher standard of living than that of living by the law. So you've fallen. So those of us that are under grace no longer need the external force of the law to keep us in God's will. We live by a higher standard. We live in sweet, intimate fellowship with our heavenly father. We're walking in the garden of Eden in the cool of the day with God. Adam, where are you? What happened, bro? What'd you do? He knows where he is. Adam, you thinking about it? You know, Enoch walked with God and was not. Enoch, whom? He's gone. He's raptured. And so we walk in fellowship with God. Fellowship's restored when we receive Christ. The holy spirit's living and dwelling within. It's not a legal external relationship. It's an inward circumcision of the heart, the cutting away the foreskin of the heart. So we live the life of the spirit in fellowship with God. So when we're looking to lie or cheat or steal, it's like the holy spirit convicts us and says, no, don't do that. Live to please me. Live a life that's pleasing unto me. And that's that's where we grow. That's where we live is in that intimacy with God. I've told you a million times, Joseph said, how could I do this great evil evil against God? As Potiphar's wife is making advances at him, it wasn't a legal thing. It was his relationship vertically with God. If you're tight with God vertically abiding in him, then there's gonna be things that are presented unto you, you're tempted with, and you say, you know, I could probably get away with that. Nobody's watching. Nobody's gonna see me, but I'd like fellowship with God. I don't want my fellowship not loss of salvation. I don't want my fellowship hindered because of sin. I don't want anything to hinder me from walking closely to Jesus. And so if there's something in your life that hinders your walk with the Lord, you know, it's like a weight. You're running with weights. You gotta throw off those weights and the sin which so easily besets you, and run with patience, the race that set before you, the Hebrew writer tells us. So you gotta throw off these weights, these things that are holding you down, impeding your progress. If there's things in your life, the gray areas of life, yeah, maybe you are one that, has the liberty to drink alcohol or to smoke pot. I don't know. But it can impede your progress with the Lord. It's not the drinking that's the problem, it's the getting drunk. It's turning to it to to assauge your your your nervous system and help you to calm down and and a means of coping. And it can lead toward becoming a drunk. It can lead toward addiction. So you evaluate these things if you want these things in your home, and you say all things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. The word expedient means, is this profitable? Is this liberty that I'm enjoying, is it profitable? Is it gonna draw me closer to Christ, or does it have the potential of hindering my fellowship with him? In a time of crisis when the government's not paying me anymore, what am I gonna turn to? Am I gonna turn to Christ and grow in that crucible, grow in that trial, or am I gonna try and alleviate some of the stress by drinking or smoking the pot? Or whatever other vice of the flesh that you indulge in to try and, you know, break the the tea kettle that's ready to burst, the pressure that you're feeling. That's where we're to grow by faith. That's where we're to rely upon the Lord, where the Lord gives us the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit to deal with these things. That's where our faith muscle grows. Where you're able to say with Job, though he slay me, yet I'm gonna trust in the Lord. He knows the way that I take, and when he's tried me, I'm gonna come forth as gold. The Lord's gonna use what the enemy meant for evil to get me to lose my mind, and he's gonna turn around for good to help me grow in intimacy with him. God's gonna reveal himself to a greater degree than I've ever known him because he's a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And boy, I'm going through grief. I gotta turn to the Lord. I need to spend time in his word. I need to put the phone down and all the things that distract and and take advantage of this time and spend it with Jesus. And so we walk by faith. We don't wanna walk according to the law. So we're in love. It's not that we have to kiss our wives. I gotta go over there and kiss her right now. We get to. You can give her a peck right now. Go ahead. If you need a gummy, go ahead. Get grab a gummy. I have to give to Jesus. I have to give. No. You don't. It's all by God's grace. You get to give. I gotta serve the Lord. No. You don't. No law. You don't have to. I'm not lord and over you. I'm not your lord. I'm not cracking a whip. You get to serve the lord. You get to. You you come to a place where you recognize the privilege of being a prayer warrior, the privilege of giving, the privilege of serving, the privilege of sharing the gospel. Not law. Kathy, you're gonna tell me you love me. I got a gun to her head. Oh, yeah, Rick. I love you. I love you a lot. You know? Put her under the law. How long is that gonna last? You know? You will marry me. You no. It's not under the law. You don't lord over anybody. She's not your dog. You walk side by side. Eve was taken from the rib. Not from your toe to dominate and lord over and force, nor should pastors try and force and use their authority in in in a way that tries to manipulate and dominate people? It's love. If you wanna leave this church, I don't call you up and make you feel guilty because you left me. You're free to go. You're free to come back. I don't get a membership, a roll call, or anything. I mean, you're born into the church. You're born again. We don't own you. We don't have a record on you of electric fund transfers and stuff like that, you know. We don't have a digital ID you're gonna have to wear around your neck or a wearable, you know, somehow that we own you. You belong to Jesus. You're blood bought. There's freedom, great liberty in walking that way. I got no head trips or programs or things that I need to impose upon you, you know, to get my vision accomplished, you know. We're just all trying to figure it out as we walk with Jesus. As he says that we're his workmanship collectively, corporately, all of us in the plural. We're his workmanship, his poema, his work of art, created in Christ Jesus onto good works, God has before ordained that we should walk in them. Our life should be a work of art, an expression of his beauty, an expression of who he is, not law, not grinding it out. You don't wanna live according to the law, it out. Being a Christian can be difficult, arduous. It it was no picnic for Paul. He said at one point, he despaired of even life, and he came to the conclusion that he had the sentence of death upon him, that he could not trust in himself, but in God who raises the dead. Maybe God's bringing you to that place. You've exhausted every avenue of trying to figure the problem out, figure out what's going on, and there's a sentence of death, and now you despair of even life. Suicides are high, and the thoughts go through your mind. George Bailey, he thought he would be more valuable dead, you know. And Clarence came and rescued him and showed him, no, you're much more valuable alive, you know. It's a wonderful life. Great story at Christmas. Right? How your life is affecting others. And we as Christians, we have the beautiful blessing of being influencers as we point people to Jesus. And it's love. It's love that dominates. Love dominates hate. Don't ever let them get you hating and get in that mode of left and right and that stuff. It's just it's a ploy of the wicked one to divide and conquer. These are your neighbors. You don't go there. You don't get caught in that. And so the legalism lowers the standards. We've fallen from grace if we fall into legalism. I don't have to give to God, I get to. So Christ becomes of no effect in your life, he says. You've lost the riches of his grace, the plutos, the plutocrats, the riches that are ours in Christ Jesus, the unsearchable riches of Christ. You've relegated it. You've reduced it. You've thrown it aside for your performance, for your display of superiority and self righteousness to those around you. You're like the Pharisee and the publican, you know? You begin to boast how you fast and you give and, you know, and his prayers only hit the ceiling. They came right back down, and the publican, the heated tax collector, wouldn't so much as even lift up his eyes to heaven and smote his breast and said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Jesus said, this man went away justified, just as if he never sinned. The other guy, not not gonna happen. If you humble yourself, God will raise you up. You exalt yourself, he's gonna base you. And the tendency is to exalt self, to be bombastic and boastful of your accomplishments and everything. But for some reason, we never take into account just one wrong, one infraction. If you're going that way, you have to be perfect. From the womb to the tomb, you're gonna have to be perfect to make it into heaven. Can anybody do that? No. Why work that way? Why give into that? Why why try to perform as super Christian? Why not just be who you are and allow God to transform and change you and for God to get the glory? Oh, wretched man that I am, you know, who shall deliver me from this body of death? And he gets into chapter eight. I thank God, you know. I thank God that there's now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. Don't lose the riches of his grace and of his glory. The unsearchable riches of Christ, the treasures of wisdom and knowledge being complete in him rather than the unbelief. And so Christianity is faith working through love. Without faith, we fall from grace. And secondly, without faith, we forfeit our righteousness. Verse five. For we through the spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. So Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. Abraham believed that God was going to bring forth a child from Sarah. It would be miraculous, and that that belief and trust in God was imputed in an accounting term into the ledger under Abraham as righteousness. He staggered not according to Romans four, the promises of God through unbelief. What was strong in faith giving glory to God before it even happened. Right? And so that's what pleased God is that faith and imputed to him for righteousness. And so the positional righteousness is what we call justification, just as if I've never sinned. In Romans eight one, again, there is now therefore no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus. So you're in Christ, the key phrase. If you're in Christ, if you're in the ark, you're gonna get through judgment. If you're in Christ, that judgment of the flood is not gonna affect you. If you're in Christ, the judgment at the Great White Throne judgment is not gonna affect you. Your sins have already been judged at the cross because you're in Christ. And God punished his son instead of you. So walk in it. Walk in it. Enjoy it. Enjoy your Christianity. Enjoy your salvation. Quit being beat down by people that judge you and criticize and condemn you. Don't don't allow it. Take them to Romans or Revelation 12, the devil is the accuser of the brethren. The devil is the prosecuting attorney, and the devil always uses the letter of the law, in your marriage. You gotta do this because my mom was this way. No. Husbands, take knowledge of your wives. That's not your mom. Take knowledge of voice. She'd be as weak as she wants. She can sleep in as long as she wants. You're not her lord. Well, Kathy. Kathy? No. She's not gonna call me lord. Forget it. She's my wife. And I need to take knowledge of her. Maybe she's a night person. She doesn't have to be like you. God puts opposites together so often, so both sides have to die to self. Both of us have to die. Both of us need to be in submission to Jesus. God didn't make her in your image or in the image of your mom or somebody else. She's unique, and you're gonna spend the rest of your life trying to understand her, and you're gonna fail. You'll never understand her. But it's the trying that counts. It's the wanting to. It's the listening. Because she's so unique. She's unlike any other, and that's the beauty and the blessing of a of a marital relationship is the discovery as we're molded and shaped in the image of Christ, both of us becoming like Jesus rather than like your mother, your father. We wanna be like Jesus. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth isn't in us in first John one eight. And so we admit that sin is still present even though I'm justified. That sinless perfection is unobtainable now. I can't reach a place of sinless perfection even after I believe. So we wait, and the picture is of you carrying the old you as a corpse. Imagine how difficult it is, your whole life long as a Christian, carrying a dead body. A rotting, corrupting, smelly dead body. That's the picture of waiting. That's the picture of our corruption fighting with the life of the spirit, and we've got to wait till that day of redemption when we can put off this old man and walk in the newness of our new man, or we get our new glorified bodies. So we've gotta mortify the deeds of the flesh. We've gotta crucify the flesh. We've gotta do everything we can to to to kill the flesh, to starve the flesh, and feed the spirit. And we're gonna see that in chapter five as we move through Living the life of the spirit. And so the picture there is this old nature, this old fallen nature that's still there. And so I'm in Romans seven sometimes, and the things I don't wanna do, I do. The things I do wanna do, I don't. I wanna be in chapter eight. I wanna live the life of the spirit, but my flesh sometimes rears its head back up and and starts to dominate or wants to dominate, wants to take over. And, just drive in the car with me, you'll see the flesh. It rare itself up, man. I can't stand the way people drive. Right? And I'll say things and do things, and then you see your children, your grandchildren using the word nimrod. Papa was saying nimrod, calling people nimrods. You know? What's that mean? Well, then you're you're caught. You know? You're caught. You're showing anger. You're showing impatience, and you're not being very loving. And, but that flesh can just rear itself up. It can get so out of control, you know, and, we have to crucify the flesh. There's no reform for that. There's no anger management for that. Gonna have to die. Gotta die. You're selfish. You're a puke, and recognize it. You need Jesus. And you cry out to God, God, I can't change myself. I've tried. Lord, please change me from within, and he will. Moment by moment. You don't wanna ride the roller coaster of performance. So we wait. For we through the spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. We wait for Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. He started this good work in me, and I'm confident that this work that he's begun, he's gonna complete it. I'm not finished yet, And I don't use my weaknesses as an excuse to continue to be weak. Christians aren't perfect. You know? I don't put that on my bumper sticker. There's no excuse. Under construction, you know, like somehow that, you know, that's gonna matter. No. I've sinned. I need help. I need help every day to live the Christian life. And I love sometimes when I realize, hey, I'm growing. I'm growing. Paul said, not that I've apprehended that for which I was apprehended. I haven't reached the goal yet, but I pressed toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. You're pressing. You're moving forward. You fall down, the mercies of the Lord are new every morning. You get back up, you start over. You get a fresh new start. If we confess our sin, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. Ask yourself, why'd you fall yesterday? Well, you know, I got too busy and I didn't spend time in the word. I spent six hours on the phone, a lot of driving and work time, and and then I had a baseball game to go to. Well, you're in the flesh. You didn't feed your spirit. All fun stuff to do, but you neglected that time sitting at the Lord's feet to sow to the spirit. Feed the spirit, to have that regular devotion time in the word, and to listen to bible studies on CSN, you know, Calvary Satellite Network, to listen to God's word, pastor Chuck, on, you know, on the word for today. You get the word of God in you, and you'll discover the spirit begins to dominate the flesh. The spirit says no to the flesh, and you start getting victory, and you start growing. That's why it's so crucial, so important to not only be a man and woman at the word at home in Psalm one, but to attend a church that teaches God's word. So that you can be equipped, so that you can grow, so you can be nourished. Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep. So many sheep are out there, and they're anemic. They're powerless. They're being beaten by the world, the flesh, and the devil. They're losing. Marriages are falling apart. They're looking for a life coach. They're looking for a pep rally. They're looking for a a cheerleader to throw up in the air, you know, at church to be entertained. It's the cross. It's always the cross. It's always death that you might be raised from the dead. It's God living through you. Not the self life. He's not gonna pamper the self life, make you a pampered chef or whatever. Not gonna happen. That's not the way. So we wait for Jesus. We're looking for Jesus. So, beloved, now are we the sons of God that does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, for we shall be like him. For we will see him face to face, and he that has his hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure. When I see Jesus face to face, I'm gonna be like him. Mission accomplished. Old man gone. That old corpse gone. My new glorified body. My new nature. I have the nature now, but the nature is fighting with the old nature. We gotta wait. We're waiting. You can't do it now through the law. You can't do it now through performance. You can't read enough, pray enough, or sit on a pole as an aesthetic long enough for thirty years or whatever to be more holy. You can't flagellate yourself with whips and go up steps on your knees and hurt your body to get rid of it. No. It's just gonna whine and complain. Not gonna make you more holy. Never seen Jesus do any of that stuff. We don't mix law with grace to sanctify us. We're being changed from glory to glory into the image of Christ. Romans ten two, Paul says, of the Jews, I bear them record, speaking of the Jews, his countrymen. I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves under the righteousness of God by grace through faith alone in Jesus Christ. They're trying to work it according to the Mosaic law. Verse six, for in Jesus Christ neither circumcision avails anything nor uncircumcision, but faith which works by love. So love is the fulfillment of the law. In Matthew twenty three thirty seven, Jesus said, thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind. This is the first and the great commandment. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. So love is a higher principle than that of the law. Christianity is faith working through love. Now Luke chapter 10, there was a guy that came to Jesus, and he said, who is my neighbor? Who is my neighbor? And a lawyer came to Jesus, and he said, good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said, you know the law. Keep the commandments. What are the commandments? And he recited this. Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy mind, all thy soul, thy strength, and love thy neighbor as thyself. And then in order to justify himself and to tempt Jesus, this lawyer lawyer who knows the law, Jesus said, you know the law. What's the law say? He says, who is my neighbor? And Jesus said, well, glad you asked. There was this guy that went from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and as he was going on that journey, he was robbed, and he was beaten, and he's wounded, and he's left half naked lying there on the in the street. And this now watch this. It's left, right, left, right. There's this priest that came by, let's say on the right. Maybe you're on the right. You're a right hand conservative evangelical. There's a guy, a refugee in America, and you don't want them to get health care. You don't want them to be fed. You don't want them to have a better life. You're indignant. You're angry, And you just walk on by. Then there's another guy on the left. He's a bleeding heart, liberal. And he's out on the left, a Levite, and he just walks on by. Then Jesus chooses his words closely. Then a Samaritan came. Now you have to understand why he's doing that to these religious people. They hate Samaritans. Samaritans are half breeds. The Assyrians assimilated when they destroyed in July when they destroyed Israel, the 10 northern tribes. They they cross bred them to wipe out the Jews. Well, this these were half breeds. They weren't pure. So that's why the Jews hated Samaritans. Well, Jesus purposely said this Samaritan come along, this Samaritan businessman, and he went there, and he put oil and and wine into the wound, and he washed the guy up and got him on his own mule and or donkey or whatever it was, and rode him to an inn. And at the inn, he give the guy 2p, and he give the guy a place of room, and he says, alright. Here's here's some money. Care for him while I'm gone and I'll come back on my route and if there's anything else I owe you, I'll pay you on my way back. Which of him is the neighbor? Who's the neighbor? Who's fulfilling love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy mind, all thy soul, all thy strength, and love thy neighbor as thyself? What if you were a refugee? What if you had to flee America into Mexico? South America? How would you want to be treated? We've been prolific in being a a place where people run to for a much much better life. And now we've been tricked. We've been tricked into hating, into dividing left and right. The republic the Democratic party previously, when they stole the election, Majorcas went down to Panama at the Danbar cutoff, and they processed all these people from Southern And Central America and brought them in, airlifting them in, traveling them in every way they could get them in here, millions of them, putting them in hotels, feeding them EBT cards, all the rest to overwhelm the system, to cause what's happening right now. It's called the Cloward Piven strategy, rules for radicals. It means that you overload the system, the welfare system, food system, everything. You overload it, the Obama era kind of thinking, these rules for radicals. Saul Alinsky's dedicated his book to Lucifer, the first rebel against God, you know. But these two other guys, Cloward Pivens, said another way to take this society down is to overwhelm its its system. And that's what's happening presently and overall, and yet we got more money, we just print it. There's no lack of money presently. Presently. Is it a sustainable system? No. Ellis Island be a much greater way. Right? Help them be assimilated into society, not bring their Sharia law and try to change the culture, but learn English, get jobs, raise families like all of us did. But somehow, we've got this big debate going, this big thing of ice, and remove these people, and get them out, and throw them away, and there's nobody to harvest the foods now. Foods are just dropping to the ground, a food crisis is on its way. Insurrection, declare an insurrection if the people continue to go out and protest, and you can see the martial law, you can see the collapse of the dollar, you can see this thing escalating simply because we forgot to love. We were baited to hate, to not love our neighbor. We're not talking just freebies forever. We're talking to help them acclimate, get going, get their kids in school, learn the language, follow the rules. If you don't follow the rules, then you get shipped back. We used to be a place where the light shines so bright, everyone wanted to come here, wanted to be here. It breaks my heart to watch the the, hatred, the incredible hatred, and dividing over so many different issues. If somebody's gay and lesbian, am I to hate them? Am I to am I to hate them? Am I to am I to say, well, I'm a I'm in a blue state, man. I need to find a red state. If they're imposing their laws against my children and legalizing pedophilia and all that, I gotta stand against it. But to pontificate and act like we're so much better, Somehow, we're we're the greatest, you know? It seems to me we're forgetting that we were once this way, that the solution is people need to be saved. Paul says in first Corinthians chapter six verse nine, he says, know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Now watch his list because you're in his list. Be not deceived, neither fornicators. Are you a fornicator? Have you looked upon a woman or a man with lust in your heart? Guilty. It's not just the external, the internal of your heart. You're guilty, Jesus said. The law just made you guilty. You need help. You need Jesus to help you. Change your heart. Change you. Because you're a fornicator, you're an adulterer. Are you an idolater? And then we come to the ones that we really hate, or the effeminate, those pansy pastors wearing those short pants and looking so effeminate. We're hyper masculine now, man. I'm a stud muffin. Look at this, you know. And all of a sudden, now we're gonna polarize over, are you a feminine or are you a stud? And then the women, they can't grow a beard, so the guys are growing beards. You can't grow this, you know. Now we got women against men. We got this whole division going on. They're taking testosterone to try and be stronger than us in the gym, and I tell them they can't lift next to me. If they're stronger than me, go over there. Too humiliating. Those girls can deadlift, man. They can deadlift. It's insane. I feel really small around them. So you go from there to the effeminate and the abusers of themselves with mankind. Oh, those are some really bad dregs. Those are the bad dudes, man. And then he goes to thieves. You ever stolen anything? And then he's got one for all of us in the Bless Me Club, covetousness. Those that covet, that are dissatisfied with what they have. He's saying, they're not gonna enter the kingdom of God, people that are covetous. You were once covetous. Nor drunkards. You ever been drunk? Nor revilers. You ever gotten a fight? Got an anger? Anger problem? Nor extortioners. And then he says, I love this, and such were some of you. Do you remember when Jesus saved you? Have you forgotten? How can you be so angry at other people's sin? How can you be so angry and just target one lifestyle or one area of disobedience to God like somehow they're unworthy of love, of kindness. Do you understand that most of the people, high percentage of the people that are living the l b g t q lifestyle were abused as children? They were sexually abused. They're confused. They need Jesus. They're trying to sort it out. Some are reprobate, some want nothing to do. We know that, but that's true of all across society. But Paul says, such were some of you, but you've been washed. Don't you wanna be washed in the blood of the lamb? And washed is in the past tense. You've been washed. That was your past. Jesus washed you. He washed the filth away. Zacchaeus Zacchaeus was a tax collector, had a problem with covetousness. Right? And he gave half of what he what he had to to reimburse everybody. And Jesus said, salvation's come to this house. He didn't say he was an adulterer, a fornicator, a feminine. He he identified Zacchaeus's problem was coveting wealth. What's a profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what would a man give in exchange for his life? You never heard sermons on that stuff. It was always the right going after the blue states. They're evil. I'm glad you guys didn't run, that you stayed in this blue state to make a difference, to love on people that need Jesus here. It's a hard field. We're outnumbered, but you're here for a reason. It's to share the love of Jesus with people who are so bewildered. They don't know which ends up many times. They're on so many drugs and so many things to try and keep their lives going. They're suicidal. They're the they're the most broken of the broken. And you're here. God has sent you here. You're washed. You're sanctified, which means you're made holy. You're justified just as if you've never sinned. How? In the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God. God did it. God is doing it, and he's continuing to do it through you and I. Christianity is faith working through love. You remember the Syrophoenician woman. In Matthew chapter 15 verses 21 through 28, Jesus went to the area of Tyre and Sidon. In the area of Tyre and Sidon, it says that a woman of Canaan came out toward him. And she said, she knew the buzzwords. She knew the buzzwords. She'd been around Mega. She knows what words to use, and she said, Lord, thou son of David, the Messiah, have mercy on me. My daughter is being tormented by a devil. She's in grievous torment. Have mercy on me. And Jesus ignored her. He said not a word. And then this disciple, he's gonna draw this faith out of her. Just like when he went to the Samaritan woman in John four. Another Samaritan, and she's empty. And Jesus is drawing the faith out of her that he had water she could drink of, she'd never thirst again. A divine appointment with a Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well, but in this case, it's a Syrophoenician woman with her daughter who's being vexed grievously by a demon, by a devil. And the answers are not a word. And then the disciples, they run to Jesus and they say, tell her to leave. She won't leave us alone. She just won't stop. She won't leave us alone. And then Jesus chimes in. He says, it's not meat. It's inappropriate for me to give bread to the dogs. Now he's insulting her. The Jews saw themselves as superior to Gentiles. They saw the Gentiles just dogs. She didn't miss a beat. It says, and then she began to worship him. You know what the picture of worship is? The picture of worship is your dog coming up to you and licking your hand. That's the picture. Your dog's worshiping you. She began to worship him. And then she says, true Lord, it is inappropriate to give the children's bread to the dogs, But even the little puppies, the puppies that Incarnation loved, little puppies. Even the little puppies get the crumbs that fall from the master's table. And you know what Jesus did to this Gentile Syrophoenician woman, not a Jew? He said, great is thy faith. Haven't seen any faith like this among the children of Israel. You're a Gentile. Great is your faith and be it done even as you wilt it to be done. Same with the centurion. Said Jesus, my my servant. The centurion has a servant who's grievously ill. Would you please heal him? And Jesus said, I'll come to your house right now. The guy says, no. He's a he's a ruler over a 100 soldiers. He has authority. No. You're I'm not worthy for you to come into my house, but I'm a soldier, and I have authority over soldiers. And I can say to one, come and another, go, and they obey me. Lord, at your word, at your word, your authority, you can heal my servant. Now look at the love of this centurion over his servant. His servant. Grievous palsy, tormented. And he's appealing to Jesus. He's appealing to God. He's interceding on behalf of the servant, and Jesus again says, great is your faith. To two Gentiles, great demonstration of faith. Christianity is faith working through love. Who's your neighbor? Has your neighbor got blue hair? Red hair? Is their skin black, brown, red, yellow? They walk with a limp, male, female, barbarian, Scythian, bonder free. Does God have his favorites? Does he love one nationality, one group more than another? No. We all have the same blood. We're all one in Christ Jesus. Why divide? Christianity is faith working through love. Without faith, we fall from grace. Without faith, we forfeit our righteousness. And thirdly, without faith, we fail to obey the truth. Notice verse seven. You did run well. You did real good. You started out in Christianity really well. Who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth? Maybe you started out as a Christian, went to youth group and doing really well, then you got married and still doing okay and then you got off track. You're you're just the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches kinda took you off course. You did run well. Who did hinder you? What happened? Well, I was going to Champion Center, and they had a Father's Day with all those boats and all those cars and all those cool things out in the parking lot, and man, I got caught up in more. I just wanted more. And in order to get more, man, I gotta I gotta invest more. I gotta do more. I gotta work more. I didn't have time for church anymore. Now my marriage is struggling. You did run well. Who did hinder you? Great you know where to go back to. Great you know to come back to church. You come back to the word of God. Who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth? So you started the race well. You got off track that has led to your disobeying the truth. The legalist prides himself on his ability to obey the law, rules, regulation, rituals, religious hypocrisy. He has no faith working through love. It's all performance. And without faith, we cannot please God. He says verse eight, this persuasion cometh not of him that called you. This isn't how God wanted you to operate. This isn't the relationship he made. It wasn't a legal relationship. It's a love relationship. This is not the gospel. Hebrews five nine says, being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto everyone that obey him. What's it mean to obey him? To believe. To believe. In John six, sir, what must we do to inherit the kingdom of God? This is the work. What's the work that we can do to inherit the kingdom of God? This is the work that you believe on him whom he has sent. Salvation is by grace through faith. The obedience is the obedience of faith. You choose to believe. The Philippian jailer, what must I do to be saved? Paul says, believe. Receive Christ. The obedience of faith, trusting in his perfection, yielding to him. When we get introverted, when we look within and we find fault, the Lord has shown me that Rick, in me that is in my flesh dwells no good thing. You're always gonna find fault looking in. Look to Jesus in his finished work. Don't trust in yourself. Don't trust in who you are or you think you're doing better or what all. Don't take that kind of inventory. Trust in his finish work. Get the load off. Then he says, as we're yielding to him the obedience of faith, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. So Paul changes the metaphor from the athletic metaphor, you did run, who did hinder you, to a cooking metaphor. The apostle Paul, I wanna suggest to you had a cooking show, And he made the best sourdough bread ever. He took the leaven. He took the starter. Kathy told me, you can take that starter. Britney makes sourdough bread, and you can hold it in a jar, and then you could keep adding to it, and it can last a long time. You got the best, you know? A little leaven permeates it, leavens the whole lump. Can you see the apostle Paul in his cooking show? Just a pinch permeates working its way, good or evil, through the entire loaf, through the entire life, through the entire church, through the entire community. Sometimes we've used the illustration concerning pornography that, it's like somebody baking cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and then you realize they just put a tiny bit of dog poop in there. Just a tiny bit. It's just a little bit. Don't worry about it. It's just it's just a little bit. But if you knew that little bit was in there, those weren't chocolate chips. You'd wanna choke somebody to death, wouldn't you? And that little bit of corruption can permeate your life, can permeate your marriage, can permeate everything you hold dear. Yeah. And so you gotta nip it in the bud. You gotta starve it out. You gotta sow the good in your life to outweigh the bad. You gotta get the word of God in and the spirit and gain victory over the world, the flesh, the devil that's trying to pull you down. So a little leaven leavens a whole lump. Don't allow a little bit of heresy in this church. We had to attack some heresy that was trying to work its way in here to undermine the glory of God. We took it serious. Why do you think Paul's writing this letter to them? Heresy is serious. He can't allow that little leaven to leaven the whole lump of people there. He's directing a whole deal of time to teach them, to model it, and now and now help them apply these truths. Don't allow the leaven, the heresy of the religious leaders to permeate this church fellowship, to become sterile, to become dead, lifeless. The letter of the law kills but the spirit gives life. In first Corinthians five, a man was taking his father's wife and the church thought it was titillating. They thought it was love. They thought it was agape. Love wins. An open adulterous affair, incestuous relationship. And Paul said, no, you gotta deal with this. A little leaven leavens a whole lump. A little immorality allowed in the church, received in the church, unabated, unchecked, unrebuked, it can permeate the whole church. Marriages can start to fall. Immorality can start to spread as the pastor doesn't have the guts to teach the word, to bring the conviction of the spirit to help a person stop before it's too late. We don't even need to know what you're doing. Just teaching the word, the holy spirit confronts you. The holy spirit helps you. God doesn't pull back the veil and show everybody what you're doing in secret, but the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword, dividing the sunder of soul and spirit and joint and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. When the word of God is taught, when you read the word of God, the holy spirit's your counselor. The holy spirit's the great physician. The holy spirit's saying, you gotta cut this out of your life. If your hand causes you a sin, cut it off. Quit doing that thing. If your eye cause you a sin, quit watching that thing. Don't go there. You're being defiled. You're being made you're being made dirty. Don't do it. And it and it sucks your strength. It zaps you of your strength to to live the Christian life in victory. Throw that stuff off. Get rid of it. Flee from youthful lust when you're a kid, when you're young, flee those things. In Matthew sixteen six, Jesus said, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. Now he's not it's not the leaven of immorality that Paul spoke in first Corinthians five. Now it's the leaven of false doctrine. The pharisees were legalists. The sadducees, they were sadducees. Why? Because they didn't believe in the resurrection. They didn't believe in miracles. Two different camps. So the leaven was legalism here. So beware of trusting in yourself, getting off track into the false doctrine of legalism, disobeying the truth. You know, people that are legalists, they have no joy. You watch them, they have no joy. Everything's like a like a police officer, ready to thump, ready to convict, ready to put you in jail. Burn the fish straight to jail. Right? Straight to jail. So we come to an accident scene, and you've got the police officer there, and he's trying to gather the facts of who's at fault. But you and I are to be now, we need police officers, but we also need paramedics. We need those that come to the scene and just want to stop the bleeding. They want the pain to stop. They don't care if they got blue head, red hair, brown hair, things in their nose, tattoos, what they don't care. Somebody's bleeding. Somebody's hurting. And Christianity's faith working through love. Jesus spent a lot of time with people that nobody else wanted to spend time with. He didn't come for the righteous, he came for sinners. He said it wasn't those who are well that need a physician, but those who are sick. And this world makes people sick, breeds sickness. Christianity is faith working through love. Without faith, we fall from grace. Secondly, we forfeit our righteousness. Thirdly, we fail to obey the truth. And fourthly, and finally, you like that word finally. Right? We forget the cross. Have you forgotten the cross? We're gonna partake of communion in a few minutes, and we're gonna be reminding ourselves where Jesus said, this do in remembrance of me. Don't forget the cross. Don't ever forget the cross. The cross is where God proves and reminds us of his love. The devil's always trying to challenge God's love that God doesn't really love you. Why did he allow these trials in your life? And the Holy Spirit shows us the cross. God proved his love for you in sending his only begotten son, and there's nobody more abused, more mistreated, more maligned than my own son. So no matter what injustice you think you're enduring or have endured, and you don't think God loves you, it's a lie from the pit of hell. For God so loved you that he gave his only begotten son. Don't ever forget the cross. He says, verse 10, I have confidence in you, though the Lord through the lord that you will be none otherwise minded, but that he that but he that troubled you shall bear his judgment whosoever he be. So confident they will come to their senses. Confident they'll snap out of it by these people seducing them. Confident they will remember the cross. Confident that God will judge the false prophets. One day God will. They're getting away with it now, but one day God will judge these false prophets. He says verse 11, and I brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross ceased. What's Paul mean there? If I complied, if I gave in but the heavies from Jerusalem, if I preach circumcision, I preach concerning the law, then everybody leave me alone. I'm persecuted, I suffer because I'm a threat to the false teaching, false doctrine of the mosaic law. Because I proclaim the gospel to both Jew and to Gentile, to male, to female, barbarian, Scythian, bonder, free, to whosoever will, let him come. And that's a threat to the kingdom of darkness who wants to be a gatekeeper when it comes to a person's spiritual journey. So have you forgotten the cross? The cross is offensive. The cross makes you politically incorrect. On September 10, Charlie Kirk was assassinated. And on that very day, our congress voted. They can't vote to send you money right now. But they voted on that day to close the Epstein files. And while everybody's fixated on Charlie Kirk, they, under the radar, closed the Epstein files and Gazelle Maxwell, it looks like she's gonna be pardoned. So this whole idea of draining the swamp and justice and all that, it went by the wayside. But one day, every single person's gonna give an account of what they did while they were in their body, whether good or bad. There is a day of accountability. And although we may not see it now now see, I could I could remove the offense of the cross by not talking like that. Not talking about judgment. Not talking about accountability. That hey, God is such a God of love that all of your adultery and all your sin, it doesn't matter. He just winks at it. You got the grace card. Wave the grace card. You can do whatever you want. That's called license. That's where you you dummy it down, where you where you don't realize that you have a higher responsibility that of love to live a life of holiness than that of under the law. And so you you move to the antianomian or or the the the license like in Jude. You attain the grace of God into lasciviousness, doing whatever you want. But that's an indicator you might not be a Christian because then you do a study in first John and you keep looking at, if we say, if we say, if we say, you might be a professor, not a possessor. How do we know? Where's the fruit? Where's the fruit of repentance? You seem to be still practicing, committing, living the life that you previously lived before, your profession of faith. And so you've forgotten the cross. The cross reminds me that I'm a sinner. People don't like that. The cross reminds prideful men that hate to hear of their accountability to God. If you could be good enough, there would need to be no cross. God wouldn't need to send his son. He wouldn't need to cause his son to suffer that. Jesus wouldn't volunteer to go suffer in your place if you could be good enough. If there was any other gospel, there's any other way. Father, if you're willing, remove this cup from me, but nevertheless, not as I will, but thy will be done. Three times he prayed, sweating as there were great drops of blood. Can you drink this cup, James and John? Oh, we can drink it. No, you can't. You think you can. You're gonna get a little taste though of God's wrath being poured out. Persecution is alleviated by compromising the gospel. Tell people what they wanna hear. If I wanna fill up all these chairs and have two or three services, I simply need to focus on you, lie to you, tell you how great you are, teach you doctrines of demons, soft gospel, candy coated, cotton candy, take away the cross, no accountability, and the church will grow. But if you start to plant your feet, and you use the word repentance, or sin, or judgment, people flee. They want no accountability. They want a hedonism. They want a man centered coach, a life coach that makes their sinful life better. No desire for holiness. No desire to live a life pleasing unto Jesus. The objective is to please self. What's the formula? Tell me the formula, pastor. He's just a motivational speaker. That's all he is. Tell people what they wanna hear. Embrace a man centered gospel and the persecution ceases, and the group grows numerically, and the group grows financially. Because if you make people secure in their sin, and then you give them an outlet to feel even better by doing good deeds, you can get money from You can get them to support this good deed gospel, a works gospel. You become like the Catholics. Don't understand the gospel, don't understand a thing, biblically speaking. But man, I'm a good person because I went to mass, and I'm a good person because I help feed the poor. When a Christian would do both. So a watered down gospel lacks the power to save. That's the key issue. Churches are filled with a lot of unbelievers, a false sense of security. People are gonna hear the Lord say one day, away from me, I never knew you. You that practice iniquity. You know the words, the buzzwords like the Syrophoenician woman, Lord, Lord, and he's gonna say, away from me. The preaching of the cross Paul said to the church of Corinth in first Corinthians one eighteen, the preaching of the cross of them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved is the power of God. The cross is offensive to the self righteous. The religious hypocrites who pray and trust in themselves, they don't like the word sin. The cross humbles us. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace. The cross is offensive to those who want license where anything goes, that of hedonism. They don't like, as I said, the word repentance. They love their sin. They don't want to change. No intention of changing. Verse 12. I would they were even cut off which trouble you. There's a play on words here. A play on words here that I'm gonna say it in a way that with dignity, with class. He said, I wish you were castrated. You wanna just cut the foreskin? Why don't you go all the way? Why don't you become a eunuch? Why don't you cut it all off? Go all the way. Remove yourselves completely. Why? So you will not produce any more slaves. Don't be producing slaves. Any more children of slavery. Jesus told the religious leaders in John eight forty four, you have your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. Paul's saying, we don't want reproduction of that. We don't want this to explode in growth. We don't want you to produce. So why don't you castrate yourself where you're impotent, where you're a eunuch, where you can't pollute this heresy with anybody else. Christianity is faith in Jesus Christ working through love. Have you forgotten the cross of Calvary? Have you forgotten God's love for you? To Lamentations, Jeremiah the prophet says, is it nothing to you all that pass by? You pass by the cross, you pass by this judgment the Babylonians have afflicted upon Jerusalem. You just pass by like it's nothing nonchalant. Is it nothing to you? Is it nothing to you that the only begotten son of God was murdered at Calvary? Is it nothing to you? Are you ashamed of the gospel? And Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. The priority to the Jew first. We come to the Jews first. If they reject, we go to the Gentiles. To the Jew first and unto the Gentiles. For therein, where? Within the gospel. Therein, the righteousness of God is revealed. The righteousness of God is not revealed in the Mosaic Law and you keeping the Mosaic Law. The righteousness of God is revealed at the cross of Calvary. Jesus is crucified, buried, raised from the dead, ascended to the right hand of the father, and he's coming again. And he said to Talastai, it is finished, paid in full. The gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel to the Jew first and also the Gentile. For, why? For the just shall live by faith. By faith. By faith. By faith. Christianity is lived out by faith in Jesus Christ, him living through us, as we love him with all of our heart, all of our mind, all of our soul, of our strength, and as we love our neighbor as ourselves. Love is the fulfillment of the law. Let's pray. Father, thank you. Thank you, Lord, that you are teaching us to love. Lord, I admit that before you came into my heart and life, I I had a very difficult time loving. There were sentiments, there were good feelings, but Lord, it it dominated myself. I wanted to love. I wanted so much to have a meaningful relationship with Kathy and those around me. There was a reciprocal love. Those who treat me good, I treat them good. But Lord, I didn't know Agape. I knew brotherly love. Lord, I knew Storge, the family love. I watched the eros, the erotic love, but Lord, I didn't know the life of the spirit, the love of the spirit, that of agape, until you came into my heart and life. So Father, I pray that you would invade the most deepest recesses of our hearts and fill us overflowing with your love. We can't love this world. We can't love even enemies. We can't love those that are different than us, Lord, in and of our own strength. Lord, we need you to love them through us, to see with eyes how you see them, to hear, to listen, to embrace, to feed, to visit, to do unto them, Lord, as we would have them do unto us. Love being an action verb, a verb, an action word, faith in action. So help us, Lord. Help us to live the Christian life, to be salt and light, to cause people to be so thirsty for you as they see the love that we have for you, that they'd be jealous, Lord. They'd be provoked to jealousy, envy. They'd want what we have, the life of the spirit. Lord, if we're just like the world, they just mock us. They know it's powerless. It's just religion. But Lord, if they get a glimpse of Jesus, if they get a glimpse of you in us, Lord, that can be infectious. That can be like leaven in a good way. It can permeate a whole group of people. So help us, Lord, we pray. Bring revival. Bring us to our knees in repentance. Lift our arms in worship. Help us, Lord, to worship you in spirit and truth in these last days. In Jesus' name we pray. And as you continue to pray, if there's anybody here this morning and you don't know Jesus, you don't have a relationship with Jesus, we wanna give you the opportunity. In John one, we're told that he came unto his own, meaning the Jews, and they received him not. But to as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name. So we wanna give you an opportunity to receive Christ in your heart and life. It may be that the Holy Spirit's bearing witness of Jesus, and you're hearing this tapping on your heart, and he's saying, let me in. I'll clean it up. I'll transform. I'll change you. I'll take you just like you are. I know all your secrets. I know everything about you, and I've loved you before the foundation of the earth. This is an appointment. This is the divine appointment where God is meeting you right where you're at, at this moment in time. And he wants to transform and change you. He wants you to go from being body and soul to body, soul, and spirit, to be a new creation in Christ Jesus. He wants to open the scriptures unto you, he wants to gift you, he wants to write your name or let you know your name's already written in the lamb's book of life. He wants you to discover that he chose you before you even knew him. And this is your moment where you surrender. You simply surrender your will and believe in the gospel. Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, and you're calling upon the name of the Lord. Lord Jesus, be merciful to me a sinner. Anyone here this morning, just lift your hand up. We wanna pray with you. We wanna give you a bible and help you get going, help you get started. Anyone here this morning? Father, again, we just thank you so much. The assurance of salvation that we have, the comfort in knowing that, Lord, this work that you've begun in us, that you're gonna complete it. Thank you for the freedom, the freedom of being set free from the tyranny of the law, the tyranny of religion, the bondage of of performing. Lord, that we can just enjoy you forever. We just enjoy you. We can bask, we can rest in your finished work, in your love. And Lord, save our daughters, save our sons, save our family members. Lord, save our community, our neighbors, save those who are perishing, those who are that are that are so incredibly hurting, Lord. Give us an open door that no man can shut, Lord. Give us divine opportunities to open our mouth, to love with our hands, to love with our hearts, to love on people, Lord. To share the glorious good news of your love for a world that's been in rebellion unto you, Lord. In Jesus name we pray, amen.