Transcript for:
Ephesians 4:7,16 -Filled Up- (Part One - Verses 7,10) Pastor Rick Beaudry 2026-02-22

Ephesians chapter four. Now verses 17 through 16 over the next two weeks, we're gonna do this in two parts. And so this morning, we'll go ahead and read from seven to 16, but our text this morning is gonna stop at verse 10. Seven through 10 is part one, and then 11 through 16 next week will be part two. And the title of the message is filled up. And so please stand up as we read Ephesians four seven through 16. But under but under every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore, he say it when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts on the men. Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first in the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill all things. And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come into the unity of the faith and in the knowledge of the son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the by the slate of men cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth and love may grow up into him in all things which is the head even Christ from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies according to the effectual working and the measure of every part make of increase of the body under the edifying of itself in love. So father, we thank you for your holy word. We thank you for being our teacher. And Lord, as we look at this text, Lord, you're wanting us to grow up. And, we want to grow up. We don't wanna remain as babes or as infants. So as we study over the next two weeks here, Lord, the emphasis upon being filled up with the Holy Spirit, being able to mature with the help of the Holy Spirit. So we pray, Lord, that you'd be our teacher, that we'd glean these truths, that we'd apply these truths to our lives. And Lord, I thank you that as I look back, over thirty years, I can see where James and Sally grew tremendously, Where I can see that others of us who have been together, we we've matured. We're growing and there's a lot more maturing, a lot more growing to do. None of us have arrived. But I thank you Lord that we're it's in motion. I thank you Lord that we're yielding to the Holy Spirit and that we're not still babes in Christ, living lives of carnality and tossed about with every wind of doctrine and cunning slate and craftiness of men, Lord. So again, Lord, lead us and guide us into all truth. Keep us on that straight and narrow today, and help us to apply these truths to our lives that we might grow. In Jesus' name, amen. Would you please be seated? Today, see the emphasis upon being filled with the filled up of exercising the fullness of Christ, as we function within the body exercising our unique gifts. And so, we're gonna see how the Lord Jesus has gifted the church next week with gifted men, four different areas of ministry. He gave apostles, he gave prophets, evangelists, and then the fourth area or office is the office of a pastor teacher. And but in that, in this whole message, the emphasis upon being the body of Christ, being filled with the spirit, and God has gifted each of us with a spiritual gift. And so we collectively as a body, Jesus is the head of his church. He said upon this rock, I'll build my church and the gates of hell not prevail against it. And so with the help of the Holy Spirit and the gifting of each person, like, there may be somebody in here, for instance, with the gifts, plural, of healing. And we go over to Sally's, room today and God in his sovereignty, he doesn't always allow people with gifts of healing to heal. Sometimes God says no, he overrules. And so anytime somebody's being used of God to lay hands and and heal somebody, it's really the Lord healing through you, but he's given you a measure of faith in that gifting to believe and trust that that he wants you to pray in that way. So, I may not have the gift of an evangelist or the gift of a healer, if you will, or the gift of healing, but I do the work of an evangelist. I share the gospel just like you do, where we preach to all nations. Right? And we go and we make disciples, so I might use my gift as a pastor teacher to make disciples. Disciples are learners, so it's my job to teach. And then, you know, others of you have gift of wisdom and and discernment and word of knowledge and all the different areas of gifting that are outlined in first Corinthians chapter 12. And and in in the book of Romans, the various gifting. And it says that the Holy Spirit gives to each man severally as he wills. And so each and every one of us has a spiritual gift. Now, we differentiate between gifts of the spirit and the fruit of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit is love. So all of us, as we're filled with the holy spirit, we exercise our gifts in love. So we speak the truth in love. Without love, we're nothing. So we might be really adept and knowledgeable and think we're really smart and and have a knowledge of the bible and prophecy and all that. But if we don't exercise it in love, then it's nothing. It doesn't it doesn't minister to the hearer. Now love doesn't mean just all sappy and soft and and we condone and we tolerate sin. No. Fate for all the wounds of a friend. There's times where in love, we'll rebuke people who may come in here thinking l b g t q is, the same as every single one of us. So we'll take them to first Corinthians six and we'll say, know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? And then Paul says, be not deceived. And then he goes through a whole list of sinful behavior that's unrighteous, and and then he and then he finishes it up by saying, and such were some of you. So you may have been in the LBGT or the fornicator, adulterer, thief, or liar, covetous. That's who you were in the past. But now that you've come to Christ and you've turned from your sin, you repented, he's transformed and changed you and such were some of you. But you've been washed in the blood. Right? You've been sanctified. You've been justified. And so the work of the Holy Spirit changing us from within that we not continue in that way. And so, we recognize, the agape love that that is paramount. Without love, we're nothing. But, here we wanna look at that that unity with diversity, the body functioning as one, as each individual member, what he is called to do so the body can grow into the fullness of Christ being filled up with him. So some of you have a real good gift of cooking and you make cookies, and I love that part of the body of Christ. I love because, you know, not not all of us can do that. And so, we cherish the different ways that people minister. Some have gift of helps, some have gift of giving, some have, discernment, administration, and collectively, corporately, as a body of believers, I'm watching as you minister one to another. And you don't need me to make an official announcement, you're just doing what the body of Christ does as you minister to each other. And that's that's the blessing. I don't want to be in a situation where I've ever have to try and micromanage the church. That's not my style. And so ministry is more caught than it's taught. If you're in tune with the Holy Spirit and he's moving and working on your heart, you're gonna move and flow in the gifts that that he's given you. And you're not gonna do it in such a way that try and draw attention to yourself. You know, you're gonna quietly do what God's called you to do, and you're going to receive a blessing because you know you're functioning, how he's ordained for you to function. And it's an effortless moving and working of the Holy Spirit because it's it's God doing it through you. And, and that's, that's the leadership style that I see. More caught than taught. I can teach it, but you guys gotta apply it. And if you don't apply it, or you think that you listen to a YouTube guy that's teaching subjectively or allegorically or I think so, I think so, I think so, then you didn't hear a thing that I said. Because you've got to compare the bible, prove the bible with the bible. And so that's that's the prerequisite of growing and not being deceived is you need to be a man or woman of God's word because God never contradicts his word. So you gotta be a Berean. You gotta check all these things out. These spirituals, abuse of the spiritual that people on YouTube and the abuse of teaching that are in YouTube and all the social media and the AI bible that's coming. You've gotta really beyond your game moving forward. You've gotta be a student of God's word. And, you gotta know how to compare scripture with scripture and look up words and definitions and understand context and you gotta really be aware. You can't just go with the flow because there's so many half truths and partial truths, which as we've discussed before, if you wanna kill rats, you give them food. So 90% of it's food, it's that 10 poison mixed in with the food that eventually, you know, kills them. So we gotta we gotta weed out, we gotta dig out, we gotta cut away that which is air and make sure that we're not operating that way. And so, each believer has been given at least one gift of the spirit to be filled up, to experience the fullness of Christ, and so is directly determined by what we do with that gift. And so to be filled up, we number one, we gotta look up. And so you wanna be filled up, how can I be filled up? You must look up to him. You must ask the Lord. So you're gonna ask, you're gonna seek, you're gonna not. You're gonna you're gonna be in prayer and you're gonna say, Lord, as you're looking up, Lord, what are my gifts? Where do I fit in within the body? Where where does my family fit in? Where are we supposed to live? What kind of church are we supposed to go to? How do we, apply that which you've given us? How do we become givers? Because you said it's more blessed to give than to receive, and so it's not always a monetary thing. It can be a myriad of different ways that you interact with people and serve one another, build one another up, help one another, and that's the that's the body of Christ. And when we do that, then we're filled up with the holy spirit. We're doing it not in the arm of the flesh, but in the power of the holy spirit. So you must look up to him that ascended above the heavens. He has a gift for you. And so picture it's Christmas morning, and he that hung on the tree that was buried, that rose from the dead, that ascended, has a surprise for you. A surprise gift. Now, I didn't know what my gifts were when I first got saved. I didn't I still don't know if there's still more or more to come or whatever. But, I began to seek the Lord. My pastor always was talking about how God wanted to use my life and how God, has great things in store and he was always talking about, you know, God's gifted you, he's gifted us, that we're all a part of it. So he's trying to let everybody know that there's a place that you fit within the body of believers. It can be a megachurch, a small church, whatever kind of church. We're a part of the body of Christ, and, and then we all fit in there. And so then there's this quest, this desire to try and figure out, you know, where you fit within the body. And I used to read, Spurgeon's letters to his students because he had a section in there on, men being called to the ministry. And I didn't, I wasn't convinced that I was called to the ministry. I wasn't convinced that I had the gifting. I wasn't convinced that I had the temperament and all that. I wasn't convinced that, you know, because it was such a surprise. It it was the furthest thing from my mind. And Kathy said, if if I'd have known that God called you to be a pastor, teacher, I wouldn't have married you, you know. I wouldn't have done this because she had no desire whatsoever, to be doing what we're doing. So it was a huge surprise. But I will say this, the Lord began to reveal, and he began to reveal through other people, primarily for me. Other people identifying what I thought everybody had. How was my gifting unique? I thought everybody had the same sorta interaction with the scriptures, let's say. And and so so anyway, little by little over an eight year period of time, the Lord, as I was first able to receive and that growth is taking place, I began to identify some of these gifts and then as you exercise those gifts, as you step out in faith, then he gives you more. And that gifting matures and and can bear more fruit and help more people maybe. He says, verse seven, but every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ to every one of us. And so that grace, that word grace is the Greek word chorus, which speaks of free undeserved favor. So everyone has been given a gift, a gift of God's grace, a place that you fit within the body. In Matthew 25 verse 15, Jesus said, unto one he gave five talents, unto another he gave two, unto a third person he gave one. And so he's illustrating a picture of a king that it makes an investment. Look at that talent, It's not your gifting, it's an investment, a unit of of money. An investment. And God has made an investment in your life. And that investment, he wants a return on. So he says as as stewards, you and I as stewards, that to one he gave five, severally according to his will, what this guy could handle in the sphere of responsibility that the Lord was gonna give him. To another he gave two and to a third one he gave one. Now the one that was given five, he traded, he reinvested in the lives of others. So that would mean that you've been given the gospel. You've been given this book. You've been given John three sixteen. And you take John three sixteen entry level Christianity and you pass it on to somebody while you're at the YMCA, while you're at Safeway, while you're in the line at Walmart, while you're a neighbor, whoever. You take what you've been given and you reinvest it in the lives of other. Now you can't control what they do with it. You can't convert them. You can't make them tell a third person or pass it on or whatever. You're obedient in doing what he's told you to do. The unsearchable riches of Christ have been invested in you. You've been to a bible teaching church for a period of time. You listen online. You're responsible for that information. Knowledge brings responsibility. And the greatest treasure that we have to invest in lives of other is the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. Even his soon return is the gospel. The gospel's not just John three sixteen, because without the hope of the rapture, without the hope of his second coming and the rapture, then the gospel's not so so good, is it? And so we we if in this life only we have hope, you know, of the resurrection, we're we're of all men most miserable. And so that hope of the resurrection of him coming back for us in our new glorified bodies and moving on into eternity, that's a that's a huge part of the gospel that needs to continue to be mentioned. And, and looking up, knowing our redemption draws nigh. He that has his hope in him, John says, purifies himself even as he is pure. It's a purifying hope, this blessed hope and glorious appearing. So we're responsible if we bury that gift and only 2% of the churches are teaching prophecy. You're gonna be responsible one day for burying that giftedness, bearing that illumination. In Mark four, it talks about that illumination that if you're unfaithful with God what God's illumined or revealed unto you, then you're not getting anymore. You're gonna be in an arrested state of development. But if you reinvest in the lives of others, the Lord's going to give you more. You're gonna have more insight into the scripture and your walking relationship with Jesus. And so, we reap what we sow in that way. And so the one he gave five, the other two, the one one and and he came back on a day of reckoning and the guy that had five, there's five extra ones. And Jesus says, well done thou good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a few things. I'm gonna make you ruler over much. So your role, your responsibility in the millennium is gonna be predicated upon your faithfulness in what he's given you. And it doesn't matter if he gave five, two, or one. He's gives what he's you're starting what you start with is according to what he, you know, gives you. And and so I would have loved to have been given, you know, Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach. I would love that that location, you know. But I've been brought to Bremerton. So what do I have to work with here in Bremerton? I do the best I can with what I have to work with. And so it's I I we what do we have here? What what do we have Calvary Bremerton? And so we we we do the best we can. And and so when I stand before the Lord, I'm going to be held accountable for faithfulness in how I handled what I was given. Well, I was given this. And I don't know anybody in this community that gives out more of this than I'm giving out. I hear everybody complaining I give out too much Bible. Well, I'm never gonna hear the Lord say, you gave out too much bible. Why'd you do that? This is what I have to invest. This is all I have. When I leave Kitsap County, this is all I have to live with, is my bible. I didn't I didn't come here to get rich. I didn't come here to get. The Lord sent me here to give. To give what was invested in my life and I continue to be given. The Lord gives me more all the time. I'm learning all the time. And so I wanna give it out and I I can only give it out to a group of people that'll tolerate me. You know, my my gift of one of my gifts in the body of Christ is to clear a church out, you know. And you guys are so sweet, you bring people and you have the gift to invite people, and you bring them and and you're kinda shaking your head like, I don't know if you're gonna be able to handle even one service, you know. And and I just have to say, if you're here this morning and you're like a plant or you've been invited, and you've got your phone on right now and you've put your phone for the alarm to go off at twelve noon, and at twelve noon you're telling me that it's time to be done and that phone's blaring right there, when I'm trying to share the gospel, I'm not gonna stop. I'm gonna keep sharing the gospel. But this isn't the right church for you. If you aren't embarrassed by that, if you don't sense the the awe of what's taking place when the gospel's being shared, That maybe you're gonna stumble somebody or distract somebody from entering into eternity? We're not in the same wavelength if that's just a joke and something to laugh at. It's serious. The word of God's serious. So anyway, I just hope, I don't expect people like that to be back. Okay? If they if they are back, shut your phone off. Alright? You're welcome, but just shut your phone off. So there's five talents, five more. The guy with two talents brings forth two more and he hears the same applause, applause, the Lord applauds him in the same way as the guy with the five. He says, well done, thou good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over two things. What's in your hand, Moses? What's in your hand? All I got is a stick. That's all I got to work with, Lord. Well, a stick that you dedicate to me, we can get a lot done with that stick, Moses. Whatever you got, you dedicate it to me. You allow me to work through you with what whatever it is you have. And he's the one that can bring forth fruit. So Moses put that stick on the ground. Oh, it turned into a serpent, you know. Moses, smite the Red Sea, split in half. God can do a lot with Dorcas sewing needle. All she has is a sewing needle and there's people that are cold out there. And when Dorcas dies, everybody's bummed out because she spent her life taking away the loneliness and the frigidness and the the cold of people not having warm garments and being able to sleep well. What do you have? What's in your hand? God wants to use what's in your hand, what he's put in your hand. If all you have is a bible, reinvest in the lives of others. Share the gospel. No matter what skill you have, use that skill as we were talking about the the Super Bowl a few weeks ago. We were praying over the Super Bowl that the Christians within this whole thing on that platform, that they would use that platform to preach Christ. And I had no idea that the coach of the Seattle Seahawks is a Christian, and that at Christmas time he gave all of his players bibles. What a great thing to do as a coach, you know. And then when he's being interviewed after they won the Super Bowl, he's saying that God, he said, God called me to be a coach. Isn't that great? Now we don't see that as listed here as one of the gifts, but it's true. God's called you to be where you're at. You grow where you're planted. And the the abilities, the gifting that he gives you are implemented in the shipyard at Bangor, Keyport on the ship wherever you go. Maybe you're a professional baseball player and and and your your natural gifting, the Lord's going to use that natural gifting to give you a platform so that then you can share from your spiritual gifting. Maybe you have boldness and you're bold enough to say on live television, God called me to be a coach and I'm so glad that I listened to him. That's important too. That you obey what the Lord's calling you to do. You could be like Esther on that on that stage for such a time as this. Your time in the public eye might just be for a few moments, but, God was preparing you the whole time for that. And so well done now, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a few things. I'm gonna make you rule over much of the millennium. You're gonna have a greater risk fear of responsibility in the millennium as we're gonna rule and reign with him for a thousand years as a kingdom of priests. We're gonna be interceding on behalf of the the the Gentiles who are repopulating the planet during that thousand years. And we're gonna be in our new glorified bodies and our sphere of responsibility as a part of the Jewish government with Jesus ruling and reigning as king and king of kings and lord of lords and and David as his prince, and then the 12 apostles on their thrones, and then there's a Gentile form of government that's taking place. And it's the time of the Gentiles is over. It's a nation of Israel dominant over the Gentiles. And you and I as the church made up of both Jew, Gentile, barbarian, Scythian bonder, female, female, we have a sphere of responsibility in the millennium. And if God's called me to pick up trash, then I'll pick up trash. Whatever he wants me to do. Because I know it's gonna fit. You know, his yoke is easy and his burden is light and he's the carpenter for Nazareth and he's not gonna make a yoke that goes around my neck that chafes my neck. It's gonna fit. It's gonna fit. It's gonna be inappropriate for who he's made me. The type of person. And I believe in my marriage with Kathy, God chose her before the foundation of the earth. As I said on on Monday night, said, you know, when I look out the audience here, I can see the women praying and saying, Lord, thank you so much Lord that I didn't have to marry that guy, you know. And I I can see it and and he's so weird. He's such a nut job. I could never endure that kind of a marriage. And then I can see the second prayer is, Lord help Kathy. Help Kathy to endure this this knucklehead, you know, and to endure the things, you know. And so I say it tongue in cheek, it's true. She she and I fit. The two become one and we're able to serve the Lord in the capacity that he's prepared us for. And we didn't know that, he was preparing us for this, you know. But here she is, a Sunday school teacher for thirty years in ladies ministry and all that. So we're as shocked as you are that, we're called to this position and that we're, still going, you know. I always pictured Calvary Bremerton like, It's a Wonderful Life and and George is there and he he's looking at 06:00 and he's got a dollar in his hand. We made it, you know. And that's how I pictured Calvary Bremerton. We made it another week. That's what it's like. It's just walk by faith day by day. We made it another week, you know. Praise the Lord. I didn't scare them all away. And then it came to the one and he buried it. He buried the gifting. And he knew that God was hard and he didn't wanna stumble or fall or whatever. He was a slothful servant, Jesus said. A wicked and a slothful servant. And he was gonna go to the place called hell. An unbeliever that didn't invest or value the investment of God's son in his blood being shed. Is that just a a nothing to you? A nothing burger? You're just gonna bury that? You're responsible for the gospel. God's invested the gospel in your life. Especially now with all the influencers saying they're Christians. I don't know what kind of Christian. I didn't put ashes on my forehead on Wednesday, you know. Whole lot of that going on, you know. I don't know what all that is. And I don't know why so many of them are saying they're Christians nowadays. It's mind boggling to me. I don't think it's a revival. I think there's a whole lot of influence going on with a with a one world religious system that's morphing. Where religion's going to ride the back according to Revelation 17 of the beast. The beast is the government. So we're watching a religion want to ride the popularity of government and media. Emerging of the two. Like we saw at the Charlie Kirk Memorial. And that's a that's part of the beast system that's developing. So we're not talking about that kind of a unity where everyone everyone's Christian no matter what kind of lifestyle or whatever. And so Jesus offers the spoils of war, the riches of his conquest if we will look up to him. And so he won. He spoiled all principalities and powers and in his victory and and in his inheritance, we're joint heirs with him and he wants us to share in that victory. So God having purchased us while an abject poverty of the spirit with the precious blood of his own son wants to continue investing into our lives lavishing his love upon us that we might glorify him. So the emphasis here is don't bury it. Don't bury that investment that God's made. The the gist of this is, you first receive, you be filled up, and then you reinvest in the lives of others. And then as you give out, the Lord's gonna give you more. And as you give out, he's gonna give you more of himself, more of his spirit. So the emphasis in Ephesians five eighteen is be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess. So basically, don't come under the influence of alcohol. Sir, have you been drinking? I fear that you're under the influence of alcohol. So be not drunk with wine wherein is excess. So you know what it's like to be under that influence. But in contrast to being under that influence, be filled with the spirit. And the Greek tense is be being constantly, not a one time thing. Be being filled with the Holy Spirit. So as you set your phone down each day and you read this, you're gonna be filled with the spirit. Refilling because you're feeding your spirit with the word of God. As you listen to bible studies coming through the ear, you're gonna be filled with the holy spirit. You're gonna push out, the world, the flesh, the devil. You're gonna be transformed by the renewing of your mind as you're in God's word. And it's it's just so incredibly simple. It's just simple. So you have to first receive before you can reinvest and and you'll find that as your heart just just fills, you get full, you've gotta give out. You cannot refrain. The love of Christ constrains you. You gotta go tell somebody about the love of Jesus. He's so loving on you. You gotta tell, I'm a I'm a burst if I don't go tell him. It's just so hard to watch them live a hopeless lifestyle so depressed and discouraged. I can't just take this and bury it. I gotta go tell them. I gotta let them know of God's love for them, and God's gonna give you more. In Romans 12 verse six, it says having then gifts differing, and and it's great that we have different gifts. I'm glad we're not all the same. It'd be so boring if we're all just robotically the same. It's exciting that we have differing gifts. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophecy according to the pro proportion of faith. So prophecy is speaking forth the word of God. Philip the evangelist, getting a little ahead of ours, but he had four daughters who were evangelist evangelist Philip the evangelist had four daughters who were prophetesses. Meaning they were teachers of God's word to other women, speaking forth the word of God to the proportion of faith that God's given you. Or of ministry, ministry is service. Let us wait on our ministry or he that teaches on teaching. All of us are teachers. All of us have a sphere of influence whether it's your children, your grandchildren, your wife, your husband, friend, neighbor. All of us as disciples, we are learners. We are in school and we in turn invest what we've learned in the lives of others. We're all teachers. Some have the office of a teacher or he that exhorts on exhortation. We gotta we gotta motivate the troops. Exhortation is is the motivation, coach that says, come on, you can do it. Get going. He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity. Some have gifts of giving. He that rules with diligence, administrating. He that shows mercy, with cheerfulness. And so keep looking up. Keep looking up. First Corinthians 12 verse seven, the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man. So every man, the manifestation, you receive the holy spirit. Jesus says, it's expedient that I go away. If I go away, then I'm gonna expedient means profitable. It's profitable that I leave you boys, because if I leave you, I'm gonna send the comforter. I'm gonna send the holy spirit. And, he's gonna convict the world of sin, of righteousness, judgment of sin because they believe not on me of righteousness because I go to my father, and of judgment because the prince of this world is judged. And so you're gonna receive the holy spirit gonna come and live and dwell within you and come upon you as you're gonna be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the outermost parts of the world. You're gonna receive power. The power of the holy spirit so that you can live the Christian life. How am I gonna be successful at marriage? The hardest thing going today is marriage. How are you gonna endure? How are you gonna do it? How are you gonna have not only be married, but have a good marriage today? It's always vertical. It's always your walk with the Lord. Always. On the horizontal plane, the trouble that we find in marriages is if we wanna diagnose what's going on, it's not because your mom didn't hug you enough. You don't need to go to these counselors and delve in the past of what makes you such a weirdo. You're in good company. You're in a church of weirdos, church of misfits. We're all a little bit off. God's made us this way. I don't wanna be normal. I don't wanna be like the world. I like being who God is making me, who he's fashioning me. Now there's parts of me I can't wait till he's done with me. Parts that I have to carry with me like a dead corpse on my back because I'm crucified with Christ. Parts of the old rick nature that I hate, I wish was dead already, all the way dead. And it keeps you humble, doesn't it? Keeps you so humble. Just yearning for that day where you see Jesus face to face and you're perfected. You'll no longer be be sinning or failing him at all. And so we we, keep looking up and asking the Lord to to help us in every way. Everyone benefits. For the one is given by the spirit, the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge. By the same spirit, we needed this word of wisdom and word of knowledge in the time of COVID. We needed to be able to differentiate between truth and lies. We needed to be able to become critical thinkers that examine the facts and not just be led by the nose by guys with white coats on. And those of us that took the time to pray and took the time to investigate, we discovered people are being lied to. And it's because you had a gift. You exercised a gift that God had given you of wisdom. The gift of word of knowledge. God gave you a check-in your spirit like, you know, this PCP test just doesn't sound right. It it doesn't look right, doesn't sound right, doesn't taste right, doesn't feel right. This just doesn't feel right. And alarms are going off in your head, but the fear mongers are saying, you're gonna lose your job if you don't. And you can't think beyond your job. Where's your faith at that point? Really, you're willing to give up your life? Then you really won't be able to provide for your family if you take this experimental jab? Really? And right now they're threatening you, your kids can't go into public school if you don't get seventy jabs into them before 12 years old? Really? Where's your wisdom? How have you fact checked? How have you looked at it? Gotta use your human faculties as well as your spiritual faculties. Ask the Lord, have you prayed? Word of wisdom, word of knowledge by the same spirit to another faith by the same spirit. Gift of faith. To another gifts of healing, plural. Gifts of healing. Boy, that's a gift. I covet in this church. Everybody's getting so sick and dying. I'm tired of it. We're getting old. And a church that well, you are getting old, not me. Church a church that fossilizes needs to evangelize. You either evangelize or we're all gonna get old and die. Because your friends are dead. Your friends are dying. You There's nobody else to invite. They're dead. Your circle of influence is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. So a church that doesn't evangelize fossilizes. We need some new blood in here. We need some young families. Well, pastor Rick shorten it up and get a youth group and maybe we'll grow. Well, that's not my job. That's yours. That you're gonna discover your gifts. Don't need to send your kids to another youth group. Start one here. But if people don't wanna step forward, don't wanna serve, I'm not gonna manufacture it. I'm not gonna life support it. It has to be organic. It has to be a work of God's spirit. A lot of us don't wanna serve. We just wanna hand them off to somebody else maybe. But maybe you're gifting. When when I was first saved and trying to discover my gifting, I helped out with the two year olds. Kathy and I did the two year olds for a year. And anybody that's been around a bunch of two year olds and you're supposed to try and teach them the bible, teach them basics or whatever, all you can do is keep them from biting each other. That's about the best you can do for and and you're looking at your clock, why is that pastor going so long? Why is he going so long? He's supposed to be done by now. It's it's brutal. For your Sunday school, it's brutal. But that's what you do. You step out in faith, you're just there to serve. And the reason I wanted to do two year olds is because Kathy was pregnant. And I wanted to learn how to be around little children. What better way than to be in the Sunday school with two year olds? And it just didn't come by osmosis, it comes by exposure, I'll tell you. And just amazing. Amazing. Gifts of healing by the same spirit. Now we have to stop here a second. We have to say, we are not cessationists. John MacArthur was a cessationist. What that means is, if you go to first Corinthians 13, after the gifts are listed in chapter 12, then you get in chapter 13 and it talks about love. So the proper exercise church of Corinth, which you're really gifted, the proper exercise of those gifts and you go to chapter 14, everything's to be done decently in order. Well, sandwiched between is chapter 13, love. Without love, you're nothing. So exercise your gifts in love, and then he says, when that which is perfect has come, then that which in part shall be done away. So we interpret that as when Jesus comes, then we won't need all these gifts anymore. But they interpret it as, and and they have to impose it on the text. It's not there. They interpret it as when the canon of scripture comes, then that which in part shall be, you know, done away. We won't need these apostolic gifts anymore. We won't need these gifts of the spirit anymore. So that's why they don't believe that the gifts are for today. The speaking in tongues and interpretation of tongues and the the list that Paul's given of all the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to every man severally as he wills. And the irony of it is is John MacArthur is very very gifted as a teacher. He's still exercising his gift. Right? It wasn't pulled away and, and exercising faith and stuff. So anyway, working of miracles. Man, I'd love to see some miracles. I've been praying for some miracles. To another prophecy, to another discernment of spirits, And and that's the spirit of anti crisis in the world today. AI and everybody's trying to deceive you. Be not deceived. Jesus said, take heed that no man deceive you. You need to discern the spirits. Paul said he was jealous over the church of Corinth with a godly jealousy for I've espoused you to one husband, even Christ. But I fear lest the as the serpent beguiled Eve, right, she was tricked. So you will be tricked from the simplicity that's in Jesus Christ. If somebody comes along with a different Jesus, so you have to you have to say, who is Jesus? Who do men say that I am? You need to know who Jesus is. You need to know that he's the second person of the trinity. You need to know John one, Colossians one, Hebrews one, Revelation one that proves the deity of Christ that he is God. So if somebody brings a different Jesus to you like the Mormons or the JWs at a Charlie Kirk seminar, and everybody's saying, we worship the same Jesus, you're the one that's saying, no, we don't. No, we don't. How do you know that? Well, he was crucified, buried, raised himself from the dead, ascended right hand of his father. Joseph Smith didn't do that. The weird glasses they wear. Buddha Muhammad Confucius didn't do that. Jesus is the only one. And he said, destroy this temple. In three days, I'll raise it up. Right? So you know the deity of Christ. You're not gonna fall for a different Jesus or a different spirit. You have to discern, hey, is this the holy spirit Or is this the spirit of the age, the antichrist of the world? And they can paint it and make it look like it's so loving. You're the hater. Taking the jab means you're loving your neighbor. They'll they'll they'll they'll package it in such a way like you're evil or weird if you don't go along with the world. Don't go along with everybody. And you need to be hated. You need to be ready to be hated. I'm good at being hated. The line is long, baby. Jesus said, woe unto you and all men speak well of you. Jesus said, if they've hated me, they're gonna hate you. And if I'm living in an apostate community, a community that's rebellious to God and of his word, of course, I'm gonna be hated when I tell the truth. When I won't back down. When I'm in a community that's deluded by the Trumpster and I have the audacity to tell the truth week in and week out, I'm gonna thin the place out. And then I'm praying, do you think one of them will come back, Lord, when they find out I was telling them the truth? That they're being betrayed, that they're being deceived, that he's the wrecking ball taking everything down to usher in the new banking system, the new global system of government, the new religious system. He's not the antichrist, he's just doing his job. You gotta take the dollar down. You gotta remove all those trade agreements with China and America. You've gotta get you've gotta get India, China, Russia, Canada to make new trade agreements with other countries without the dollar. You gotta wean them off the dollar And he's the wrecking ball. People don't see it. So clear to me. Right there. It's happening in real time. Gonna wake up one day and your dollar's gonna be worthless. You think the trumpets will come back and say, pastor, I wish we'd have listened to you. Maybe if more people woke up rather than vote, if they'd awakened in the churches, they could have stopped it by exposing it. And yet the Epstein stuff, I don't think anything can get as bad as that in my mind. All the different things associated with that. And nobody's getting arrested. Do do is there any outrage in the church? Is there any pastors outraged enough to to even mention it? Now I don't wanna mention it because it makes me sick to my stomach. So I wanna just a cursory kind of a broad stroke. I don't I don't wanna go into depth on any of that stuff, but it definitely is an indictment against us. If God's gonna judge Sodom and Gomorrah, he's certainly going to judge this nation that keeps acting like they're exceptional. That they're above it all. You've got to exercise these gifts today. Discerning of spirits, another of diverse kinds of tongues, tongues of men and of angels. He that speaks in an unknown tongue speaks on to God, not on to man. So you need to be discerning if you're in a group of people speaking tongues. Know the proper operation thereof that he it's an edifying of yourself before God. Prophecy is a different gift. If they come out with the interpretation, oh my children, you know, it's false because it's not directed to man. He that speaks in an unknown tongue speaks unto God. It's directed to God, not unto men. Prophecy is directed to men. Oh, okay. So the people at Pentecost, they're hearing the wonderful things of God. 16 different dialects of people, different languages going off. So when you hear John McArthur or somebody saying, well, know those gifts that they're still not operational, then you as an evangelist would go to Russia and speak Russian to them. No. That's not the definition of that gift, John. It isn't directed toward Russian people. It's directed there. He that speaks in an unknown tongue speaks unto God, not unto men. It's a worship language. It's a it's a language that edifies you up as you pray and praise God in that different And then the interpretation of people get the interpretation of the wonderful things of God being lifted up and people hearing in their own dialects. If you have different groups of people, different languages, they're hearing the wonderful things of God. It's a praising of God. And some here, tongues of angels. I was in a room in an afterglow where a guy was singing with a language of angels. So beautiful. Beautiful. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. So a spirit filled church, a church that's filled up, a church that's looking up, man, that's a church that I wanna attend. I don't wanna attend a church that's weak and beggarly spiritually speaking. And to another the interpretation of tongues. But all these work at that one and a self same spirit dividing to every man separately as he will. So the holy spirit divides these gifts throughout the body of Christ so that we don't walk with a schism, so that we're not walking like with a broken leg, so that we're walking in harmony and sync. And it's a diverse group of people, diverse gifts, a very healthy body of believers filled with love, overflowing love, and healthy sheep reproduce. People getting saved. For me, there's nothing more exciting than seeing people get saved and disciples. Have you looked up? Have you asked him? Jesus said in Luke eleven nine, know you're we're thinking like, well, Lord, how do I enter into this? How do I receive my gift? How do I get to know what my gift is? And Jesus said to ask, to seek, to knock. He that asks receives. He that seeks shall find. He that knocks, the door will be opened unto him. Right? It's through prayer. You ask, you seek, you knock. And the Greek tense is keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking. And then he says, which of you if your son asked for bread? Look at what you're asking him for. Lord, I'm not asking to the lottery numbers. I'm just asking Lord that you divulge to me what my spiritual gifts are. Don't you think he's motivated for you to discover what your spiritual gifts are? He's the one that gave you the gift. So which of you have a son asking for bread, would you give him a stone? It's a stone in that yeah. If he asked for a fish, would you give him a serpent? If he asked for an egg, would you give him a scorpion? And then Jesus said, now this couldn't go against your psych psych one o one zero one class. Okay? It's gonna go directly against your psych one zero one that teaches you that you're basically good. And your problem's your environment. Your parents, blame it on your parents, blame it on your brain, blame it on society. The reason you're such a wretch is blame it on somebody. Play the blame game. No. Look in the mirror. The reason you're such a wretch is because you're a fallen person, a fallen body, you need Jesus. So he says, if you then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly father give the holy spirit to them that ask him? Keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking, Don't settle. Don't settle for a low end Christianity. You're a plutocrat. The riches that are ours in Christ Jesus. The unsearchable riches of Christ. The spiritual riches that are ours. Do you know you can be a billionaire and be spiritually bankrupt? Do you know that? Of course, you know that. And you can be a worshiper of mammon, a worshiper of money, or you can be a worshiper of God. Where your treasure is, there where your heart be also. God wants your heart and he wants you to have his heart. That you are in fellowship with him and sync with him in at one, in that oneness. So ask, seek, knock, look up. Keep looking up. He says, wherefore he say it. Now he's gonna quote. He's gonna quote out of Psalm 68 verse 18. Wherefore he say it, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. And so he's quoting Psalm 68, 18, the victory is sent of a conquering king received and and giving gifts. So there's a picture there of Moses where he goes up Mount Sinai and he receives the law and he comes back down. He ascended up and he came back down. And so the gifting that Moses, had that he received from the Lord also with his staff and his calling was able to deliver the children of Israel from from, Egypt. And so there's captives. There's those who are held captive, and the captives are those who were awaiting future for Jesus to die upon the cross. So all the Old Testament patriarchs, all those in the Old Testament that were believers that died had to wait for the cross. So salvation was the same for them as it is for us. It's always been by grace through faith alone. So if we go all the way back to Adam and Eve, what kind of gospel did did they hear? The gospel that they heard was Genesis three fifteen, that the seed of the woman, the woman doesn't have a seed. So the virgin born son of God, his heel's gonna be bruised at the cross of Calvary, but he's gonna crush the serpent's head. So they're looking and you see Adam and Eve trying to wrestle with the guilt and wrestle with their sin and wrestle what has happened because they've been walking in a perfect relationship with God in the garden in the cool of the day and all, as we studied last week. And now sin has entered the camp. Sin has entered the world. And the sin has separated them from God. They're they're apart from God. They can't walk in that fellowship with him. Fellowship's been ruined because of the transgression of Adam, the sin of Eve. And so they cover their nakedness with religion, with fig leaves. The external, externally they're trying to cover and hide their sin, their guilt. And that's the detriment, that's the weakness of psychology is they don't know what to do with the guilt. So they try to play the blame game to pass the guilt off to somebody else to set the person free from the sense of conviction and guilt of the lifestyle or just being a human being. We on the other hand say, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. You're guilty. I'm guilty. We're all guilty. And then I worked with Judah the other day, putting the Romans wrote into his phone and, helping him with Romans three twenty three and then Romans five verse eight. But God demonstrated his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. Right? And the wages of sin is death, Romans six thirty three. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Then Romans ten thirteen, whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. So I'm trying to equip Judah with a way to preach the gospel, to lead people to Christ. Right? And we have the same approach. They in the garden, Adam and Eve, were given coats of skins. The coats of skins representing Jesus, the lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world, not just cover on the great day of atonement, the kaphar of sin. So they're leaving the garden knowing that without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. It's impossible that the blood of bulls, of bullocks, of animals could take away sin. So now they have to look future awaiting as John the Baptist said, behold the lamb of God in John two who takes away, not covers year by year, covers, takes away the sins of the world. That's the gospel. So they're looking future awaiting this, but he hasn't gone to pay for those sins yet. Righteousness is imputed to them, but they have to await the the actual payment which is blood. And not blood of animals, but the blood of the only begotten son of God, the lamb of God. So wherefore he saith when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. Now notice verse nine. Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth. So there are those awaiting the crucifixion, the death, the burial, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. So he that ascended eventually, after forty days of walking on the planet, you know, with the disciples and over 500 seen at one time. Ten days later on penta fiftieth day, he ascends at the right hand of the father, but he came out of the grave for people to see him resurrected. He that ascended first descended. So where is he going? He's going in a place the bible calls Hades or Sheol, which is hell. A general term. A double compartment according to Luke 16. And so Jesus goes there and the thief on the cross said, Lord, remember me when you enter your kingdom. And Jesus said, this day you'll be with me in paradise. So this double compartment according to Luke sixteen, one side of the compartment is paradise. It's also called Abraham's bosom, which means all the old testament patriarchs, the old testament people are are there, and it's a place of comfort. Now on the other side is the rich man that died, and in his life, everything went really good for him. He had all the good foods and everything. And Lazarus, not the Lazarus in John 12, but Lazarus, he was poor and he ate the crumbs, the scraps that fell from the rich man's table, So he hung out at the trash cans as a homeless guy. And he forged through the trash cans to get scraps from the rich man's table and the dogs came as he's laying down and they licked his sores. So he's very sick. And Lazarus died and the angels came and gathered him and took him to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died in Luke 16 and he went to a place of grievous torment. And in torment, he lifts up his eyes and across a gulf, he sees Lazarus there in Abraham's bosom. And he cries out to father Abraham, Abraham, could you send Lazarus, still ordering the poor guy around? You know, rich guys in hell still try to order thinking they're in charge. Could you send Lazarus over to dip his finger into the water to come touch my tongue because I'm in grievous torment? And Jesus explains in the parable in the in the story that knowing your life things were good for you, in Lazarus And there's a great gulf between the two that neither one of you can travel to either side. And so the rich man thinking, well, I've got five brothers and I don't want my five brothers to come here too late. If you just send Lazarus back to go tell them what a bad place this is and see, you are doing that. You're telling people what a bad place hell is so that they will appreciate the good news. You've gotta let them know the bad news. You can't tell them there is no hell. They need to know there's a hell. Jesus spoke more about hell than he did heaven. Warn them. Warn them. It's a place he doesn't want them to go. He's not willing that any would perish but that all would come to repentance. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his sin. You've got to teach the doctrine of hell because maybe then they'll see the kindness of God that leads to repentance. That God doesn't want to God doesn't send anybody to hell. People choose to go to hell by rejecting the gospel. So Jesus tells them, no, they have Moses and the prophets. They can hear Moses and the prophets, meaning the Old Testament. Your brothers can read the Old Testament. You can find me in the Old Testament. The volume of the book is written of me. 300 prophecies fulfilled in his first coming. Study the book and you'll hear from me. And he says, no, but if one would come back from the dead. And he says, no, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they hear the one be raised from the dead. There's your teaching that there's no purgatory. There's no way to pray or pay somebody out of hell. It's a double compartment. It's a holding compartment awaiting the great white throne judgment. So that compartment, the good side paradise is emptied out. He that ascended first descended lower parts of the earth and empty that compartment out to be absent the bodies to be present with the Lord. And first Peter chapter three says that Jesus, when he went down in there, I'll read it for you. He went and he preached under the spirits in prison. And so what's that mean? Those spirits in prison that were there from the time of the Noahic flood, the the powers of hell, he spoiled all principalities according to the church at Colossae. He spoiled all principalities and powers he triumphed over them. It's a victory. It's not a sharing the gospel or a second chance for people in hell. It's a proclamation of victory. I just won. I'm a conquering king. I've conquered sin. I've conquered death. I've conquered hell. And so he's announcing to all the the those one third of the demons that that sided with Lucifer, that left with Lucifer, the stars, as we'll read tomorrow night, one third of the stars, one third of the angels fell with Lucifer in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. And so he's announcing these real bad demons that are being held back right now that are in a place, a Tartarus and or the abyss or the Abuso, in this double compartment of hell. They're being held back. Well, announced to him, you guys lost. And when the demons are there at Gadara and Jesus delivers these demons out of these two guys at Gadara, The demon said, we know who you are, Jesus. Have you come to torment us before our time? They know their destiny is out of eternal damnation. You need to teach people this. People need to know that when they say, yeah, I believe in God, well, the demons also believe and tremble. What kind of faith is your faith? What do mean you believe in God? Who's your God? Who's your Jesus? What's it mean to believe? Is it does it involve conversion? Does it involve repentance? Does it involve a transformation of any man being Christ? He's a new creation. The old things are passed away. All things have become new. Or is it just a membership in some five zero one c three fundraising enterprise? Give you the feel goods. And next week, we'll get into that more. He went and he preached having spoiled all the principalities and the powers. He made a show of them openly triumphing over them in it. So it's a picture of a conquering king coming out of Armageddon. This is the second picture. But coming out of the grave, down in hell preaching victory, but coming out of the grave and coming up into Jerusalem and going up the Mount Of Olives into the city as a conquering triumphant general, as a conquering king. And when there was a triumph, we're more than conquerors through him that loved us. And we triumphed that triumph, a Roman triumph is when they would subdue foreign governments. They would take some of the priests and they would take some of the kings that were overwhelmed and bring them back in chains as a spectacle in the Colosseum that the Romans could see them be executed. But there would be the conquering general in his tribe. Well, Jesus is a conquering general. He's the conquering king. And the savor of life and the savor of death is there because the priest would be taking their incense and throwing it around like this. And that smell, Paul said, would wave into the air. And for some, for the prisoners heading to execution, it was the smell of death. And for others, of life. Our king conquered. And there's now therefore no condemnation that are in Christ Jesus. And he wants to give you gifts. He wants to give you part of the bounty, part of the spoil that he's taken. In his subduing of the wicked one, the of the devil who's come to steal, to kill, and to destroy. But he's come that you'd have life, that you'd have it more abundantly, the abundant life of the spirit. He wants to give. He wants to bequeath. He wants to give. He wants you and I to experience what it means to be filled up, to be plutocrats. So he that descended the same also that ascended far above all the heaven that he might fill all things. So he's he's at the right hand of the father. He ever lives to make intercession for us. He's prophet, priest, and king, and he's wanting the holy spirit to come and give us these gifts. So look up, ask, seek, knock, discover your gifts, your function within the body. Be filled up. In Jeremiah thirty three three, thirty three three. Now, you like numerology? Three, the holy spirit. Jeremiah thirty three three. Call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which you know not. The privilege of prayer. Call unto me, the Lord's saying. People come up to me and they ask me these hard questions. And the first thing out of my mouth is, did you pray? Did you ask the Lord? Because my opinion means deadly. I think God will speak to you. I think I think he'll he'll he'll tell you. Have you read God's word? Is there anything you're wanting to do that's contradicts God's word? Because he's not gonna contradict his word. So be careful what other people are telling you. You're the Psalm one man. You be Psalm one. Bless this man that walks not in the counsel of the godly nor stands away the sinners nor sits in the seat of scornful. Don't listen to those guys. You be different then. You be a man of the word. Meditate in the word. Search the word. Pray. Ask the lord. Ask him. Call unto me and I'll answer thee. You have access. The veil of the temple is rent in two, man. There's no condemnation. Call on to me. Go right there. Storm. Storm is thrown. It's a throne of grace. Picture yourself a grandkid and you're never gonna get put on hold. No matter how busy papa is, you have access. Right? You've seen that dynamic? I was watching the kids the other night with, Kathy, her birthday we had over there. And we had chicken. They like chicken legs. Grandma's favorite thing to fix them with with, Caesar salad and rice. Pretty simple family. Right? And lots of chicken, lots of lots of food there. And, anyway, we ate the chicken and this Ruthie, she is she is the dynamic of these kids, way they interact. You gotta put your phone down. You can't be watching. We had the 10 commandments on. And Gideon's right up at the he's so fascinated with the 10 commandments. He's right up there at the piano, sitting up top there eating his food, watching that, you know. It's different dynamic going on. So anyway, see Ruthie. She comes over to me. She got a chicken bone in her mouth. And she's running around the chicken bone. Well, the dynamic is such is that right before that, Toby didn't get his food yet and Ruthie's sitting down where she's eating. And Toby reaches over and grabs her chicken while it still had meat on it and brings it back. And nobody sees this except me, and she takes her spork. You know what a spork is? It's it's a spoon with a points on it. And and she takes her spoon, pokes them, you know. And I'm just like, this is hilarious. And he's like, ah. She gets her chicken bag. Well, the next scene is she's got that bone in her mouth. Now Isaiah, who's one up of her, is jealous that she's got a bone in her mouth. So Isaiah takes his bone, which doesn't have all the meat on it. He brings it over to papa who's laughing hysterically and says, papa, take that meat off. Bite this. Take that meat off there. I'm not biting your your I'm not biting that. So he takes it over to his daddy and he tries to his daddy. No. That's your job. You take it off that. So the whole thing is one person had a bone with no meat on it. The other one wanted it and they're going crazy running around with and I'm just like in heaven. I'm just in heaven. I'm laughing hysterically because it's so crazy. It's like the twilight zone, but it's a good twilight zone. And it's just, you know, the older kids are fighting and I'm worried that one of them is getting their teeth knocked out. I'm just sitting there taking this all in and it's just fascinating. And that's how I picture God's throne. It's just you you can you can bring all your crazy, all your warts, all your bad stuff and you can storm his his throne of grace and he washes it away, he cleanses you, he he picks you back up, he gets you going again, he shows you what gifts you have, and and Lord, I failed you. Lord, well, get back up. Keep going. Just be faithful. And then you see when you're in Hebrews 11, there's no record of your failures. He took them from the East to the West and remembered them no more. The only record in the Hall Of Faith is how you honored him by using your gifts for his glory as you continue to walk by faith. The only way you break his hardest to not believe. Without faith, it's impossible to please him. And you learn to trust him. You learn to trust him deeper and with more as you exercise those gifts his kingdom and his glory. That he'll fill all things. So he that descends the same also that us ended above far above. He ascended, what is it about that he first descended first in the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended far above above the heavens that he might fill all things. So he's the victor. He's there on his throne. He's conquered and he's ready to fill you up. So look up, ask, seek not. Discover your gifts, your function. Call unto him and I'll answer you and show you great and mighty things which you know not. In Micah seven seven, it says, I will look unto the Lord. I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. Look up. Psalm one twenty one one says, I will lift up my eyes under the hills from whence comes my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. And so who are you praying to? You're praying to the creator of the universe. Come up call unto me and I'll answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which you know not. You don't know everything. He's got things you don't even know of, you haven't even thought of. And who is it you're addressing? You're addressing the creator, you're addressing the father who gave his son, the one that loved you and proved it by giving his son. So you're his by right of creation, you're his by right of redemption. You're his. You're twice his. And he's offering you. He's offering you the riches that are ours in Christ Jesus. He wants you to move and operate in these gifts of the spirit to edify his body. And so Luke twenty one twenty six, we see a situation when men who look under themselves fail miserably. Are you looking unto Elon Musk? Are you looking unto Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, Google founders? Are you looking unto the billionaire business set, the bankers? Are you looking unto the politicians, the pedos? Who is going to make your life better? Who is going to be able to deliver? Can Elon deliver unto you a universal basic high income? If you embrace this new system that they're going to implement? Can he really deliver? Can Elon go against the curse within the garden that everybody's gonna have to work by the sweat of their brow? Can they circumvent can they make socialism finally work? No. They're gonna have to kill a whole lot of people, aren't they? They're gonna have to use a population reduction to get to the Georgia Guidestones of just 500,000,000 people as their number. And a whole lot of robots, whole lot of AI operative, whole lot of jobs being lost. And they think with their efficiency, when have they ever been efficient? Never gonna happen. It's a utopian promise. It's the promise of a golden age. It's a merging of religious groups with business, with government, offering and promising a golden age. A satanic counterfeit golden age. Satan is a counterfeit. I'm gonna say to Satan, no. I'm going by way of the cross. I'm willing to suffer until Jesus returns and sets up his kingdom. I'm not gonna settle for a counterfeit. And so as these men are looking that way, in Luke twenty one twenty six it says, men hearts failing them for fear. What do they have to be afraid of? Oh, there's asteroids and meteors and parts of planets coming toward the earth. The sky is falling. The sky is falling chicken little. They're just they're freaking out. They're freaking out because of the nukes. They're freaking out because of the cataclysmic events. Their hearts are failing them. They have so much fear. They're overwhelmed with heart attacks. And for looking after those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. Maybe they're super afraid of the aliens. Maybe there's more and more demonic activity. The UFOs and all that or project blue beam. All the different ways that humanity is being deceived and the supernatural deception that comes with the opening of of these demons. Now when the rapture takes place and the restrainer is removed, which is the work of the holy spirit in the church is removed, the phrase is all hell's gonna break loose. There's gonna be no restraint. Restraining of evil. Men's hearts are gonna fail them. You and I look past all that, we look up knowing our redemption draws nigh. That Jesus is gonna save us from the wrath to come. He's already saved us from the judgment of the great white throne judgment. God's wrath was poured out upon his son, but he's also saving us, promising to save us from the wrath to come upon this earth. When God pours out his wrath upon a Christ rejecting world during the great tribulation period. So my heart's not failing. My heart's looking up. And then that shall they see the son of man coming, those in the tribulation period. They're gonna see the son of man coming in the clouds with power and with great glory with 10,000 thousands of his saints. Every eye's gonna see when Jesus returns. In his second coming, they're gonna see him. The rapture happened too quick, they won't see. Victory, redemption. And when these things begin to come to pass, Jesus said, look up, you look up and lift up your heads for your redemption's drawing nigh. So keep watching, keep looking up, keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking, keep being filled up. So I've been a Christian since 1980. None of this is getting old to me. It's getting more exciting. I am so stoked that I'm a Christian in these last days. I am so stoked for the investment that's been made in my life since 1980 that my pastor taught me the word of God. That my pastor painstakingly from Genesis to Revelation over and over again made sure that I had the opportunity to understand the full counsel of God. There was no sermonettes for Christianettes. It was the whole enchilada every time. I don't do salads. I'm a meat eater. I want it all. I do a little salad. And so I'm thankful and that investment that's been made in my life, I'm responsible as you are to reinvest in those the Lord puts in our path. To simply take what's been given us and reinvest in the lives of others. If all you have is John three sixteen, go with John three sixteen. Very powerful verse. If all you have is Jesus loves me, this I know, for the bible tells me so, you go with that. There's no more profound truth than that truth. Atheists will heads will pop over that truth. But you stand there uncompromisingly and you ask the Lord for the boldness. You ask him for the boldness to get back in there in the fight when everybody's threatened you to take you down if you're in the book of acts. They said we're gonna obey God rather than men. And they prayed for boldness and they went right back out there. Right? And where did the religious leaders find him? Back in the temple, back sharing the gospel. You can't stop people like this. Paul's stoned at Lystra. When he wakes back up, everybody thinks he's dead. He goes right back into Derby, listen to Iconium sharing the gospel. And he and he lets them know the cost of following Jesus that we through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. Not the tribulation, but through much tribulation. And so Abraham, Jesus said, rejoice to see my day and he saw it and was glad. Abraham knew looking up ahead that Jesus would go to that cross. And the gospel was before preached to Abraham, Paul said. So all the old testament patriarchs, they got the picture of Genesis 22. Right? Of the father taking his only begotten son, Isaac, to offer him there. And so we're looking back to the cross and we're responsible as we look back to the facts of the cross of the death, the burial, the resurrection, ascension, and soon return. That's what we're responsible for. And we're gonna hear him say, well done, thou good and faithful servants. You've been faithful over a few things. I'm gonna make you rulers over much. Enter into the joy of the Lord. Prophecy's not doom and gloom. Prophecy's the joy of the Lord that's coming soon. Father, we thank you. We ask that you would move and work by the power of your Holy Spirit, that Lord, we'd be able to give an answer of the hope that's within us, Lord, to those who are perishing, to those who are without hope. Lord, we pray that we wouldn't bury the investment that you've made in our lives, but that we'd give it out, we'd invest in others. That you'd give us opportunities, that you continue to give James and Sally opportunities in that hospital room. With nurses, with doctors, with friends, with family, that people would see the finality of this life and these bodies, Lord. And yet for the Christian, we're just moving out of this body into our new glorified body. But for the unbeliever, there's a fearful looking to of judgment. For the believer, Lord, the best is yet to come. And so Lord, this light affliction is but for a moment And it's working a far more eternal weight of glory while we look not at the things which are seen, for the things which are seen are temporal. But we look at the things which are not seen, the spiritual realm. The joy of the Lord's our strength. Lord bless, we pray. And this morning, if there's anybody in here that has a phone that's about to go off, turn it off. No, I'm just saying. Anybody in here that doesn't know Jesus and you want to. The holy spirit's tugging on your heart. The holy spirit's showing you the cross. The holy spirit's showing you the finished work of Jesus. The holy spirit's showing you that you're a sinner in need of a savior. That you need to turn from your sin. You need to cry out to God, God be merciful to me a sinner. He hears that prayer. You have to come with all your warts, with all your sin, with all your junk, all your baggage. You can't alleviate it. Jesus paid for those sins and salvation is a free gift by grace through faith alone in Jesus Christ. So you receive the salvation where Jesus said, it is finished, italicized, paid in full. The work is complete. You appropriate that gift by faith, by believing in him that he was crucified in your place, that he was buried, that he raised himself from the dead, that he ascended to the right hand the father, that he's coming again. You say you do believe in God, you do well. The demons also believe and tremble. What kind of faith, what kind of belief is your faith? Is it dependence upon the finished work of Jesus that he died in your place, that he died for your sins. That faith is imputed to you for righteousness. The account the accounting in the ledger says paid in full. Sins have been paid for. Anyone here this morning, just lift your hand up. We wanna pray with you. Anyone this morning? Father, thank you once again. Thank you for your love, Lord. We pray that you fill us to overflowing now as we partake of communion, that through your peace that surpasses all understanding with regard our hearts and minds, that we would enjoy thoroughly, that we'd enjoy you this morning, Lord. We've come to worship you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.