[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agopic Baptist Church in George, South Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you would, please turn with me to Exodus chapter 13, Exodus 13.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been studying about how God has redeemed His people from Egypt and delivered them from a tyrant.
[SPEAKER_00]: How the Lord is bringing them out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we are now at this transition period where God does bring them out.
[SPEAKER_00]: They go out of Egypt, slaves go out of Egypt without raising a single sword.
[SPEAKER_00]: Without picking up a single shield in their self-defense, God redeems them and delivers them and has a great victory by His strong right hand against Egypt and Pharaoh and all the demonic powers in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wins and they go out.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not over yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord has more glory to win for His own name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet this is where we are at as they walk out, being delivered by God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we are in this transition period where God is now bringing them out, and there is a chapter here in chapter 13 where God is going to remind them how he is the one who has redeemed them.
[SPEAKER_00]: and how he wants them to remember what he has done and what he has promised to do and that he wants them to think carefully about how they now follow him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I have done it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now follow me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Follow me and I will lead you through it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will lead you through the wilderness to the Promised Land.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is what we're going to look at this
[SPEAKER_00]: chapter 13, if you follow me, I will lead you, the promise of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's read the passage together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exodus 13, beginning in verse 1, I'm going to read the whole chapter.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one piece.
[SPEAKER_00]: So stay with me if you can.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord said to Moses, consecrate to me all the firstborn.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and beast
[SPEAKER_00]: They are mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: First three.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then Moses said to the people, remember this day in which you came out from Egypt out of the house of slavery for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place.
[SPEAKER_00]: No love and bread shall be eaten.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today in the month of a bib you are going out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites and Jebysites, which He swore to your father's to give you a land flowing with milk and honey, you shall keep this service in this month.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seven days, you shall eat and love and bread, and on the seventh day, there shall be a feast to the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And love and bread shall be eaten for seven days.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, love and bread shall be seen with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And no, love and shall be seen with you in all your territory.
[SPEAKER_00]: You shall tell your son on that day.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it shall be to you as a sign on your hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as a memorial between your eyes that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth.
[SPEAKER_00]: for with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: You shall therefore keep this statute at its appointed time from year to year, verse 11.
[SPEAKER_00]: when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites as He swore to you and your fathers and shall give it to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You shall set apart to the Lord, all the first, all that first opens the womb, all the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the lords.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb or if you will not redeem it, you shall break its neck.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every firstborn of men among your sons you shall redeem.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when in time to come, your sons ask you, what does this mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: You shall say to him, by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery.
[SPEAKER_00]: For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, I sacrificed the Lord, all the males that first opened the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons, I redeemed.
[SPEAKER_00]: It shall be as a mark on your hand, or frontlets between your eyes, for by a strong hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt for 17.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by the way of the land of Philistines, although that was near.
[SPEAKER_00]: For God said, less the people changed their minds when they see war and returned to Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea, and the people of Israel went out, went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moses took the bones of Joseph with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: For Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they moved on from succuth and in camp to eat them on the edge of the wilderness.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Lord went before them.
[SPEAKER_00]: By day and a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way and by night and a pillar of fire to give them light that they might travel by day and by night.
[SPEAKER_00]: The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Heavenly Father, I ask, in the name of Jesus and by the power of your Holy Spirit, that your Word would change us this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please, Lord, do not let anyone leave this morning unchanged by the Word of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Human preachers can raise their voices, can swing their arms around, they can stamp their feet and jump up and down, but if the Holy Spirit is not here among us at work,
[SPEAKER_00]: and the words are dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Lord, I ask that your Holy Spirit would change us as your word is faithfully proclaimed in Jesus' name, Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the first thing we're gonna look at is this clear call to remember to follow the Lord, remember to follow the Lord, because the first point is
[SPEAKER_00]: you belong to God, you belong to God, look with me at verse two.
[SPEAKER_00]: The firstborn of man in beast were the best that Israel had to offer in God says they are mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: bear mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: The best of Israel belong to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the first born of man and beast were precious to each household we've seen this already in Exodus.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first born sons represented the future heads of households.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were going to be the representative head of each home, the one who led the family and God says you are mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: each leader and Israel, you are mine, follow me, follow me, you are mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the first born among animals, we think it's kind of strange that God keeps emphasizing the first born of animals, but the first born of the animals represented the future wealth of a nation and of each household.
[SPEAKER_00]: So your leaders, he says, you are mine, follow me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, your wealth, it is mine also.
[SPEAKER_00]: Trust me with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Give it to me, watch me bountifully bless you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is what he's saying to Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: You belong to me, Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the essential point of the Passover, and the feast of 11 bread.
[SPEAKER_00]: You Israel belong to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember that, tell your sons and your daughters, your family, tell them, remind them that you belong to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this theme will be repeated to Israel throughout the Old Testament.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this truth is no less for us Christians.
[SPEAKER_00]: is no less true for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We belong to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you not know, Christian, that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, you, Christian are not your own.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Scripture says, for you, Christian, we're a bod with a price.
[SPEAKER_00]: So glorify God with your body.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you, Christian, household of God, church, are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you, Gentiles, you and I, Gentiles, outside the covenant, once you were not a people,
[SPEAKER_00]: But now you are God's people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the testimony of Scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christian, your body does not belong to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: your mind does not belong to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your heart does not belong to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you look at with your eyes matters to God because your eyes do not belong to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: They all belong to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why does God say that the Christian totally belongs to him?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because each one of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: were purchased, were redeemed by God at a terrible price.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because God has redeemed us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has redeemed us out of darkness.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has redeemed us out of the house of slavery, just like this is pictured in Exodus 13.
[SPEAKER_00]: When God brought Israel out of Egypt, the price of their redemption, their physical redemption from Egypt was signs and wonders, the death of thousands of animals and the death of every first-born's Egyptian son.
[SPEAKER_00]: Israel belonged to God because God redeemed them out of the house of slavery with his mighty hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: He reached down and said, you are mine and I've paid the price for you to save you physically out of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: But how much more Christian do you and I belong to God?
[SPEAKER_00]: How much more?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because God sent His mighty hand from heaven, Jesus Christ, His Son, to pay the ultimate price for our redemption.
[SPEAKER_00]: Through the incarnation, which is when God sent His Son from heaven to take on human flesh, when God,
[SPEAKER_00]: when God sent His Son in this act.
[SPEAKER_00]: God was rolling up His sleeve and bearing His holy arm for all the world to see His signs and wonders and mighty deeds.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is what was happening in the incarnation.
[SPEAKER_00]: God was rolling up His arm and saying world, humanity see my mighty wonders that I'm going to bring into this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Isaiah 53 verse 10, testifies of this when it speaks of the Messiah, this way, the coming Messiah, the Lord has bared His holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
[SPEAKER_00]: That speaking of Christ came into the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: The mighty and holy arm of God became flesh and wealth among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as the only son from the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the might.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the glory.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the holiness of God walking around in human flesh.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the Holy Arm of the Lord, this time, they not come to slay the firstborn sons and animals of the Romans.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not why Jesus came.
[SPEAKER_00]: That may have delivered Israel from another tyrant, Caesar, Roman occupiers, but it would not have delivered us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would not have delivered you and I from the wrath of God against our sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would not have done that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Son of God didn't come into the world to crush the Romans or to temporarily appease the wrath of God against our sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not why he came.
[SPEAKER_00]: He came into the world to be the once for all sacrifice for sins for all who would believe that is the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has come into the world once for all for whoever will repent and believe this good
[SPEAKER_00]: God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us Christian to the kingdom of His beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christian you belong to God because God has redeemed you at a terrible price.
[SPEAKER_00]: The price of the precious blood of Jesus Christ, the only Son of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, remember to live holy lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is how our passage goes on.
[SPEAKER_00]: The logical process in our passage, if you look with me at verses five through ten.
[SPEAKER_00]: It moves logically to the expectation of God for his people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those who belong to him because he has redeemed them at a terrible price.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, remember to live holy lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the point of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, as we've already seen in Exodus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember to live holy lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sweep out the leaven, which represents those small little fragments of sin that we leave hanging around.
[SPEAKER_00]: We let it just blow around in our hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: We let it multiply until it's trying to take over our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sweep out the leaven, sweep out the sin from your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Daily, moment by moment as a spirit of God, Convicts you of sin, sweep it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he's given you eyes to see the sin in your own life, don't leave it there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Repent of it, confess it, sweep it out the door and shut the front door.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the picture of the feast of 11 bread.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look and remember, all the Lord has done and has promised to do for you and love to live in the peace of the holiness that God has purchased for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: We looked at that several weeks ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: God says, I have purchased your holiness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now go, work out your salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now go live in the sanctification.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've purchased for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now go live like it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the already, he's already done it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is finished.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now live this life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Live in the holiness I've purchased for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we call sanctification.
[SPEAKER_00]: finished by God, lived out by the Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a beautiful Christian truth that takes from your shoulders the burden of being perfect, which none of us can bear.
[SPEAKER_00]: It takes it off your shoulders and it puts it on the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross and he says, it's finished.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now go live it in peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: The peace of the holiness that God has purchased for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Christian, if you've been walking with the Lord very long at all, you know what it feels like to not have a single thing that you're holding back from God and where you're saying, I am fully, to the best of my ability, to the best of my knowledge, walking with God right now, there's not a single sin, I have not confessed and turned away from.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does that last for very long?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, because we're still assaulted daily by the flesh.
[SPEAKER_00]: But my friends, the goal is to live there as long and as consistently as possible, because we love to live at peace with our God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we love to live as we already are for given, holy, walking with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We love to feel that, it experienced that moment by moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: What a joy, it's not because you are earning it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cannot earn the pleasure of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has granted it freely, and He says, now live in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: With peace, the peace of holiness, the holiness He has purchased.
[SPEAKER_00]: put it any, put away anything that would grieve the Holy Spirit as one way it's put.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sin is grieving the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Put away anything that would grieve his Holy Spirit because today's experience and feel the steadfast love of God is better than life, David says.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is better than life to live that way at peace with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do unbelievers in the futility of their minds.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are darkened in their understanding alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity the Bible says.
[SPEAKER_00]: but that is not the way you learn Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Assuming that you have heard about Him and we're taught in Him as the truth is in Jesus to put off your old self.
[SPEAKER_00]: Put off your old self which belongs to your former manor of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self.
[SPEAKER_00]: Put on Christ is another way of putting it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Put on the new self created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Follow the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Follow closely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, passage goes on, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, put on Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: For we are members, one of another, be angry and do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil.
[SPEAKER_00]: My friends, if you go to sleep at night, furious, filled with wrath in your heart at a family member in your own home.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like you open the front door of your house to the devil and said, come in, corrupt this place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come in, come into this home, fill us with wrath and anger and bitterness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tim's me, devil.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tim's me, if you will, to speak words of anger that tear down another.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying you can resolve every disagreement before the sun goes down.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not what we're talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about this wrath, this anger in our hearts that we go to sleep with at night, rather than going and seeking as much peace as possible before we call it a day.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Bible says, if you do not live this way, where you moment by moment seek to live restored, peaceful lives when you're home.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you do not do this and you daily go to sleep, filled with wrath, you are opening the door to the devil and his lies in your heart and in your home in husbands, we would die for our families.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone breaks through that front door.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are the first to jump up.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't matter what happens to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will die before anything happens to our family.
[SPEAKER_00]: They will kill me before they touch them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I go to sleep, having trashed my wife with my words, an unrepentant, hard of heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I am the enemy in the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am the one hurting them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have opened door to the devil.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't need a thief to break in and hurt our families.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just needs you to not believe in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just needs you, husbands.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't need anyone else.
[SPEAKER_00]: So please, plead with you, hear the words of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not go to sleep at night, filled with wrath at one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: Live at peace with one another to the best of your ability.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will not always agree, but you can agree to humble yourselves before God and to live at peace with one another to the best of your ability.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can both agree to love the Lord and to love each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil.
[SPEAKER_00]: The passage says, let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need put on Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't steal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it said, put aside extra in case there's anyone in need so you can joyfully give it away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Put on Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear that is God standard for our words.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is giving grace to the one who hears.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does that mean they like what you say?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, we know the gospel will offend,
[SPEAKER_00]: but it is still undeserved kindness that I spoke the gospel into their lives and made them furious that I said you are sinner, condemned to die right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody likes to hear that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is grace, unmerited, undeserved kindness or favor.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can do that into one another's lives as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we are speaking truth into someone's elses life in love, it doesn't matter their reaction.
[SPEAKER_00]: What matters is if you are pouring out on merit at favor, on everyone around you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is God's command to us as Christians for how we speak.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if it's not that, do not speak.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christians.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we fail and we speak, and we just trash someone with our words, we swing a club at them to hurt them?
[SPEAKER_00]: God says, I know that's going to happen in the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what do we do?
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, go to them and confess your sins one to another.
[SPEAKER_00]: Confess your sins say,
[SPEAKER_00]: I did not obey God and I did not show grace to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Will you please forgive me?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what Christians do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Put on Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 30, this is Ephesians 4, verse 30.
[SPEAKER_00]: And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not grieve Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, put it off.
[SPEAKER_00]: along with all malice, be kind to one another, tender-hearted for giving up one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do we do this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it because that other person deserves my forgiveness?
[SPEAKER_00]: No!
[SPEAKER_00]: Is because they're likable or I'm going to get something in return?
[SPEAKER_00]: No!
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the reason.
[SPEAKER_00]: For giving one another as God in Christ
[SPEAKER_00]: God has forgiven you far more than you will ever have to forgive another person.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have sinned against God, the Holy God, and so many different ways, so many different various ways, and so many ways by number, you will never be asked to forgive another person as much as you've been forgiven before the throne of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, as you have been forgiven for GIF, truly from your heart, do not grieve the Holy Spirit as it's so important to His Christians, do not grieve His the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will be to know, advantage for us,
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no advantage in grieving the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will only rob ourselves of experiencing moment by moment the joy of our salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think of David in the Old Testament when he raped a woman and killed her husband, he tried to hide it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know he was miserable.
[SPEAKER_00]: but then the prophet came and confronted him about his sin and David says, I'm guilty, and he repents.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the Psalms tell us about the prayer of David.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, after his sin, he pleads with God, he says, I have grieved your Holy Spirit, and he says, restore to me the joy of my salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: When David grieved the Holy Spirit,
[SPEAKER_00]: You must have no advantage to Him for He lost to some degree the joy of His own salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christian, we can do that to ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we grieve the Holy Spirit, we can lose the joy of our salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am not saying that someone who's been born again can lose their salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hear me clearly, please.
[SPEAKER_00]: You, Christian, can live this life without the joy of your salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you continue and sin without repentance, that is absolutely possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this life will become a miserable time for you, a miserable life, a half life.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not what God intends for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I fear that some in this room this morning are telling a lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: by the way, you gather with other believers.
[SPEAKER_00]: In case you feel like I'm judging you, I'm not, because I know that I have lived lies at times of my life as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've gathered with other Christians.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have laughed and joked and smiled and put my arm around my wife and acted like we're just one big happy family, but it was a lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because on the way to church, my flesh,
[SPEAKER_00]: My anger, my intolerance, my self-righteousness was at play and at work.
[SPEAKER_00]: On full display for anyone watching in that little block box of the car, and then I get to church in, turn on the lie, so that no one knows.
[SPEAKER_00]: My friends only you know if you're sitting here today, if at home, and the box of your
[SPEAKER_00]: If that's the true you, the person who's here this morning is telling a lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you the same person in private that you are in public?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you afraid constantly that your spouse is going to spill the beans on who you truly are?
[SPEAKER_00]: Would your world as a Christian come crashing down this picture you're presenting to the church?
[SPEAKER_00]: Would it come crashing down if somebody another Christian saw your web search history?
[SPEAKER_00]: Would it come crashing down?
[SPEAKER_00]: My friends do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: The holy third person of the Godhead, who is the abiding seal of your redemption.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is what he's called, the abiding, living in you seal of your redemption, your salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep him close.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cherish the gift of his presence above any earthly treasure in my friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: The presence of God living among us is not something that's cheap.
[SPEAKER_00]: or something to be taken lightly.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the greatest treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep him close.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be willing, my friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Bible, Jesus tells us, be willing to cut off hands and pluck out eyes, to feel him near.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no earthly sacrifice you can make that is too dear, to feel and experience the presence of the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: in you as the seal of God for that day.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter what happens here, he is the seal that is saying on that day, the Holy Father God will receive you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus Christ will say, you are mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Enter in to my eternal peace and rest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Friends, there is no earthly price to dear to pay, to keep him close in this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the one who affirms in your own spirit that you truly do belong to God and that we are, in fact, the children of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we do not have this family language.
[SPEAKER_00]: Children of God, that's a name for the people of God or Christians, the children of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Romans 8, brothers, we are deaders, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about living in sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just however we want to live whatever way you want to according to your own mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, my friends, please hear me.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you walk and sin in unrepentance, for the rest of your life and you stand before God one day, you not only have died physically in this life, you will die eternally in the lake of fire.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not just trying to scare you, it is a scary thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to think carefully, not just about today or tomorrow or the next 10 years, I want you to think about eternity.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a drop in the ocean.
[SPEAKER_00]: One, range drop in the ocean is this life right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the ocean of eternity forever and ever, you will live somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will either live in the presence of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: where he says there are pleasures forever more at his right hand, which he delights to give to his people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or you will live in the lake of fire, which is called the eternal death, you keep experiencing death.
[SPEAKER_00]: It never ends.
[SPEAKER_00]: Consciously, you will experience death forever and ever, my friends, please.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about the ocean of eternity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brothers, we are deaders not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
[SPEAKER_00]: For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if by the spirit you put to death, the deeds of the body, you will live.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you put off the things of the world that God forbids and you put on Christ Jesus, you will live now and forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are a young in this room and you are afraid that God is a big kill joy, if that is your fear about being a Christian, I'm telling you that is a lie of the devil.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is not a killjoy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the creator of Joy, and He says, if you follow me, I will fill you now and forever with eternal joys.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not talking about Ferraris or mansions or yachts on the ocean.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not talking about that kind of joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are the promises of the devil in the world to distract you from eternity.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about the joy of belonging.
[SPEAKER_00]: The peace of forgiveness, the knowledge that God has made you holy, is making you holy and will glorify you one day in His presence.
[SPEAKER_00]: The experience of being at peace with your spouse.
[SPEAKER_00]: How many people have tasted that in this world that they're married with kids and they're
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the promise of God that He will give you those kinds of choice as you, Christian, follow Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will look different for each one of us, but God does promise, joy, peace, hope for everyone who will believe and will follow Jesus Christ, His Son, His representative.
[SPEAKER_00]: for all who are led by the Spirit of God, are sons of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: For you did not receive the Spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption of sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father, this intimate language of my dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I father.
[SPEAKER_00]: Abba, Father, the Spirit Himself, bears witness with our Spirit that we are the children of God, what a precious, precious testimony, if you're walking with the Lord, the Spirit
[SPEAKER_00]: airs of God and fellow airs with Christ when our older brother, Jesus Christ, enters into his eternal kingdom, we will enter in with Him and inherit with Him in Him all the promises of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Provided, Paul says, provided which means if provided we suffer with Him in order that
[SPEAKER_00]: That's this life.
[SPEAKER_00]: This life is like the wilderness wanderings.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a big tropical paradise.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not heaven in this life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We follow Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Though this be a wilderness, though it's dry and hot and sandy.
[SPEAKER_00]: My feet hurt, we still follow Him because we know He will provide for us and bring us to the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: The end is worth it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this passage in Exodus 13 ends by reminding Israel, again, remember, you belong to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He begins it with you belong to God, and he ends this passage with you belong to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 11 through 16, the Lord repeats this essential truth that Israel belongs to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Israelite sons were going to ask their fathers, why do you eat and love and bread and
[SPEAKER_00]: The Scripture's testify that this is going to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your son's going to ask, because it doesn't make sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you giving away our best?
[SPEAKER_00]: And fathers were to answer them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember how the Lord redeemed us from Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember that the Lord purchased us as his people and that we are His.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the blood of the eternal covenant, God has made you his own.
[SPEAKER_00]: His family, children of God, and fellow heirs with our older brother, Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We belong to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next point is much shorter, I promise.
[SPEAKER_00]: He promises to lead you.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you will follow him.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you will follow, we have the joy of knowing that he promises to lead us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we see this in our passage in verses 17 and 18.
[SPEAKER_00]: How the Lord does not lead Israel into immediate temptation because they were weak.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their faith was weak.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is demonstrated in verses 17 and 18.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did not lead the Israelites directly into the fortifications of the Philistines.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you see there in that passage, because that was the natural highway.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the way out of Egypt and into the promised land of Canaan.
[SPEAKER_00]: Through the land, through the fortifications of the Philistines.
[SPEAKER_00]: God says he did not, he would not do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Less they be tempted to turn back to Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, as a loving Father, God led them by another path so that He could protect them from being tempted to sin and give them more signs of His continued ability and faithfulness to keep them.
[SPEAKER_00]: This reminds me of how the Lord instructs Christians to pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, in Matthew 6, 13, and lead us not into temptation.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is how you and I are to pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father, Heavenly Father, who we are following in this life moment by moment, lead me not into temptation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christian, when you are redeemed by God, you leave Egypt, you leave the world behind, and you head out into the wilderness of following God, wherever you lead you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the picture for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of our paths are fun and refreshing and easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had a couple of those.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like every day's sunshine and rainbows, and it's so wonderful to be a Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're a Christian, you can have a wonderful life too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people preach that message because they've only had a couple of wonderful days as a Christian, and they think that's the Christian life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those are the mercy of God that we would even have a rainbow day.
[SPEAKER_00]: But most paths are somewhat trying and require faithfulness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most days on this earth are just a bit trying wearyness, creeps in, and we have to continue in faithfulness, even though it is weary and trying.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then there are parts of the journey that threaten to crush our faith and tempt us to turn back to the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: We face those days and we're like being a slave and Egypt was better than this.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the temptation of those hard days.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you Christian pray, oh, Father, lead me not into temptation.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are pleading with the Lord to keep you far from anything that would tempt you to abandon your Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are saying that you love to walk with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, I love to walk with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please do not let anything come along my path that would tempt me to turn back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please, Lord, I love to walk with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please, Lord, do not lead me down a path where I might deny you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please, Lord, I am weak, carry me, and do not let me fall.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lead me not into temptation.
[SPEAKER_00]: It seemed like Israel in the wilderness as you go through the book of Exodus and the other books.
[SPEAKER_00]: It seems like they were often and constantly looking for any excuse, and any reason to go back to Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: As soon as they hit a temptation, they were like, that's what I was waiting for.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over and over again, that's what happens in the Pentateuch.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Exodus, in the wilderness, wanderings.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Christians, we're not like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not to be like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Looking for any excuse.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any reason to go back to the world, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Christian pleads with God, not to give them any reason, not to let any reason come along their path, any temptation to go back into the cursed life of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, Lord, do not let me for a moment believe or think that going back to the cursed life would be better, to be a slave.
[SPEAKER_00]: to my passions and to the devil.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, please do not let me for a moment, believe that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, please make going back, a living in the sinful life, the past life, make it, may it taste stale and all than like ash in my mouth.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I tried to take a bite of it, Lord, turn it to ash in my mouth, and may I vomit it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, help me to love what you love, and to hate what you hate, give me a taste of my mouth.
[SPEAKER_00]: For what it tastes like to you when you see your people sinning against you, not believing you, thinking that you're not faithful, that you're not good enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, Lord, let me get a taste.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just a tiny taste of how vile that is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's that I never go back, lead me not into temptation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because today's experience and feel the steadfast love of God is better than life, better than life's.
[SPEAKER_00]: What David test of us, lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil Jesus teaches us to pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: That goes into the next,
[SPEAKER_00]: part of our passage in verse 19.
[SPEAKER_00]: It shows us how God delivers his people from evil.
[SPEAKER_00]: In verse 19, we're reminded of the faith of Joseph and how he said 400 years before this Exodus, 400 years before he prophesies and says, God will surely visit you.
[SPEAKER_00]: He will surely do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not that he might come for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, he will surely visit you to redeem you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember with me, Exodus 3 several months ago, then the Lord said, this is him saying, I do see.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right before he comes with the plagues, he says this in Exodus 3, then the Lord said, I have surely seen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and I have heard their cry because of their task masters, I know their sufferings.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have seen, I hear and I know your sufferings, my people.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord surely sees.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the suffering of His people, and He will surely deliver.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a promise of God that He will surely deliver.
[SPEAKER_00]: He will, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how we pray as a Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because in the world we will face trouble, pain, suffering, and all kinds of evil.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is not the will of God to take us to be with him the moment you're saved.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes we wish that was the way it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I believe, if I repent and believe, I'm with the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes we do wish that don't we?
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he says, that is not my will.
[SPEAKER_00]: My will Christians is to leave you here on the battlefield.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to carry my banner, the blood-red banner of Christ crucified.
[SPEAKER_00]: on the front lines of the battlefield.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stay in the trenches.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Raise the flag.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not let the flag fall.
[SPEAKER_00]: And no matter how wounded and how sick and how much terrible trench foot might be, or how terrible the food might be, or no matter what you are going through, no matter if someone on your right hand or on your left hand falls to the ploys and the lies of the devil.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter what happens, raise the banner.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep raising the banner, raise the banner until you're 90, and you fall dead simply from old age, someone else will pick it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't worry, I will send someone else to pick it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep raising the banner high on the battlefield because your Lord is coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot win this battle.
[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot defeat the enemy, but my son, he is coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is coming again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he comes, he will come with all the angels of heaven and might and power, and he will have the victory, and he will be well pleased with those who held the banner high till he came.
[SPEAKER_00]: My friends, that's the Christian life.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's for the glory of God that we hold the banner high that we pray, Lord, when the enemy attacks us to deliver us from evil.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is allowing us to remain in the evil, but then He commands us to pray that we he would deliver us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: So that God can glorify His name and give us great joy when He delivers us in the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's his will.
[SPEAKER_00]: That we would hold the banner high in hope and say, dear God, please help us from this evil onslaught of the enemy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of my temptations, I am tempted to Lord to give up,
[SPEAKER_00]: I will.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are good is done to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our faith is strengthened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our eyes are turned up to God, unbelievers see it, and they wonder, at the hope that we have, and God is glorified in the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the Christian life.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the battlefield,
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul testifies to this in second Corinthians.
[SPEAKER_00]: For we do not want you to be unaware brothers, of the fliction we experience in Asia, for we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.
[SPEAKER_00]: but that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: He delivered us from such a deadly peril and He will deliver us on Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have set our hope that He will deliver us again.
[SPEAKER_00]: You also must help us by prayer so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.
[SPEAKER_00]: as God answers prayer, we receive good and he receives glory.
[SPEAKER_00]: As you follow God, pray for deliverance from evil, and he will surely do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe not in the way we thought, most likely not in the timing we desired, but in his
[SPEAKER_00]: for his glory and your good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, let's look at the promise that he will never leave us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're reminded of this promise in verses 21 through 22 that God will not leave his people.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're told that God led the people by the physical manifestation of his presence, seen in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as they followed him, his presence, the closing passage says, did not depart from before the people.
[SPEAKER_00]: It did not depart from them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the church no longer follows clouds or fire, that is not how we are called to follow God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our flesh and blood king is seated at the right hand of the Father right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he is coming again.
[SPEAKER_00]: But our flesh and blood keying is not here with us physically, right now in flesh and blood.
[SPEAKER_00]: We cannot follow Him in that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus has promised to never leave us and to always be with us in the holy presence of His Spirit, abiding in us, walk by the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let it peace with the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've left.
[SPEAKER_00]: Follow His leading as the Word of God, as you study the Word of God, and the Spirit of God leads you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Follow me, Christ says.
[SPEAKER_00]: For He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we, Christian, can confidently say, the Lord is my helper.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will not fear what can man do to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus promises, all authority and heaven on earth has been given to me, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as we are going, as we go about our daily life here and further and further out into the world, as we do this, He says, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.
[SPEAKER_00]: follow the Lord earnestly, and with all sincerity from your heart, and God promises to lead you safely to the end of the journey.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not be discouraged.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not be discouraged Christians.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're hearing all these things about what the Christian is supposed to do, and you're saying, I haven't done that.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you must repent, repent.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you must turn, turn.
[SPEAKER_00]: But don't be discouraged.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't just sit in the mock and say, I'm a terrible person.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes you are, and so am I.
[SPEAKER_00]: But God, in Christ Jesus, was righteous enough for you also.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you will repent of that wickedness and believe in Jesus Christ as the only Son of God, the Lamb of God who takes away your sins on the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: Believe that and rise up in the strength that God provides from the monk.
[SPEAKER_00]: and walk with God through the wilderness of this life, in the peace and joy of the holiness he has purchased for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: God has provided you everything you need for life and God on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so let me read this passage from 2 Peter 1 as you head out this morning into the world and to seek to do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: for His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and Godliness.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have all things.
[SPEAKER_00]: All things necessary.
[SPEAKER_00]: Through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises we've seen today.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that through them, you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire, escape from Egypt and don't go back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't turn around and go back.
[SPEAKER_00]: For this very reason, make every effort, grace and now duty.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Christian life is a life of grace of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has done everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: for this very reason, make every effort Christian to supplement your faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we believe by faith in the promises of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, supplement that faith with virtue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Doing what is right.
[SPEAKER_00]: and virtue with knowledge, know the word of God, and knowledge with self-control, bring your mind and your body under submission to the word of God and his spirit, and self-control with steadfastness, keep going, don't give up, hold the banner high, and steadfastness with godliness, put on Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And godliness with brotherly affection, love is people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love them so much that when they sit against you and they're going to, you forgive them, brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love, it's just concept of giving yourself to someone for they're good, even though they're not deserving.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their deservingness has nothing to do with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fact that Christ loved you, God in Christ Jesus loved you is all that matters to you and therefore you turn around and love others.
[SPEAKER_00]: put on love.
[SPEAKER_00]: For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus Christ, there's the warning.
[SPEAKER_00]: For whoever lacks these qualities is so near-sighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't bring Egypt with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Leave it in Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've been cleansed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Leave the love in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent, the duty, the call to follow, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election.
[SPEAKER_00]: God has called you to Himself and chosen you as a Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: For if you practice these qualities, you will never fall.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a promise from the God who has never broken a single promise.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you follow Him, He will carry you and lead you and give you everything necessary to finish and to come into His presence with joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 11, For in this way, there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has done it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is finished.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now follow him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stay close.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't grieve his Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Follow the Lord and He promises to lead you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holy God in heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are all sinners.
[SPEAKER_00]: No man has ever walked before you in righteousness, except for one, the God, man, Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: None of us can stand in your presence today.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we were to die today in a car crash, leaving this building today, if we died now and stood before your presence and we were not washed in the blood of Jesus Christ, Lord, none of us could have a single good word to speak about ourselves when we saw you.
[SPEAKER_00]: We would all fall down with a full awareness that you are holy and we are not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet Lord, I praise you.
[SPEAKER_00]: We Christians praise you and thank you for the gift of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: That in Jesus Christ, if we believe in Him and follow Him, that we can be covered by the righteous blood of the God-man, Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that His blood is the only thing that can make us clean.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that in a very real sense, if we were to die today as Christians, there's no fear in death.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no fear of condemnation.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is only the anticipation of seeing you, of being in your presence, of hearing, well done, enter into my joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: would leave before they make sure that they are washed in the blood.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please God, Holy Spirit, work through your Word in this place, amen.