Walk In the Light — Ephesians 4-5

0:00 Let's open in another word of prayer. Father, we're thankful for this assembly. We're thankful that there's a place in this community that has a group of believers meeting and is acting as a light in the community. We thank you for the faithfulness here for the many years and we also are thankful for the privilege of bringing Your Word today and opening it up and hearing what You would have us to hear from it today. We're thankful for Your Holy Spirit, and we're thankful that we don't have to interpret this according to our own will and mind, but that Your Spirit is able to give us light and insight with it.

0:53 So, pray that that would happen today. And we pray that it would be clear and plain and easy to apply to our lives. We pray it in Christ's name, amen. I'm going to go back to verse 29 of chapter four. I sometimes feel that the chapter divisions are somewhat unfortunate because they break in the middle of a thought.

2:09 Ephesians four twenty nine, Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and clamor and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, has become saints neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

3:12 Let no man deceive you with vain words. For because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them, for ye were sometimes darkness. But now are ye light in the Lord, walk as children of light. For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

3:38 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

4:57 Go back and see. And so this putting away of bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking and all malice and being kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you is a way that we as believers can follow in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think it's really important to realize right from the start that this passage in this book gives us a lot of direction for things to do. And I want to make very clear right from the start that I do not feel that it is possible for us in the power of our own flesh to do these things and be obedient to this passage. The Bible says in three of the books that we're not studying Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews that the just shall live by faith.

6:01 And so we need to make sure that as we're reading these things and taking these commandments from the Lord, which they really are by way of Paul the Apostle, that we make sure that we understand that we cannot discipline ourselves into the obedience of these things. You cannot in your flesh be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what chapter two is about. By grace are you saved through faith and those works that you should walk in, you walk in them according to faith. In the book of Galatians, it says as...

6:42 Or I'm sorry, in Colossians, it says, As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him, rooted and grounded in faith. So you need to be coming to the Lord, and I'm going to make a suggestion that I heard recently another, I think it was Lan Solomon I was listening to on the radio, and he said, We need to come in the mornings and say, you know, I just heard this thing that the man that was teaching at the church said, and I just can't do it. There's no way in my flesh that I can do it. However, you've commanded me to do it, so therefore by your Spirit, if I'm walking in your Spirit and acting in principle of faith, I should be able to do it. And so Lord, I'm going to surrender my attempt to do it and get rid of that, get that right out of the way and confess to you that there's no way I can make this happen.

7:35 And I'm going to rest in you and have faith that you will be able to make me do that. So anything that I say that you should do, please understand this is not me saying that I do it, because I'm still I struggle with faith, knowing whether or not I can do these things. And not only do I struggle with faith, but I think all of us do but it's in the Word of God, and so we're to say you should do this. But it's not you that can do it. It has to be you acting in faith, because God is the one who works in us to do to His good pleasure.

8:16 So I want to preface everything I say today with the fact that you can't do this, but God can through you. And so, just remember that as I go forward. So, we're to walk in love. I say that because it's very difficult to walk in love. Okay?

9:20 The offering offerings had to do with the things that were not for sin: burnt offering, peace offering, meal offering. And the sacrifices you made a sacrifice when you sinned and you had sinned... I'm sorry, I have it backwards. You had the offering, sin offering, you brought the offering to the Lord. I have it backwards.

9:43 The offering is a trespass offering and a sin offering, but it's a burnt sacrifice. And so the sacrifices are things that are given to God voluntarily that's what the Lord Jesus Christ did but then He also offered Himself for our sins. And so the Lord Jesus Christ gave Himself for us. There are parallel passages for this which I'm not going to get into because there's a lot in this, but I would refer you to Philippians chapter two and the section where it says, Let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus. I'm also going to refer you to Hebrews five:six-ten.

10:29 And we understand there some of the things that the Lord Jesus endured for us, the humiliation that He did. And one of the things that love that when we walk in love and we give ourselves as a sacrifice, we need to start to forget about our own needs and live for the needs of others, which is really hard to do because, at heart, we all are selfish and prideful people. If you're not, I congratulate you. I'm so glad that you're doing better than I am, but that's not the case with me. If I'm honest before you and before God, I am a prideful person, and I am a selfish person, and you can just ask my wife.

11:10 Please don't ask my wife. But this is truth about each one of us that at heart, at heart, we want what we want for ourselves. And the Lord Jesus Christ was the opposite of that. He gave Himself for us. And so, what are we to forsake if we walk in love?

11:37 Well, fornication, which is sexual gratification outside of marriage uncleanness uncleanness covers a whole multitude of things. And I find sometimes that we could go into great detail about what these things are, but I believe you know in your heart of hearts what they are, and you know where you're guilty of it, because I think every one of us is guilty of these things. And we realize that we have struggled to act in a loving way for many, many years, and we've done it in our own strength and we've failed miserably. And at least that's been my experience, and I've been learning over the years that I need to turn it over to God and come in faith to God and say, God, I can't do this. Today, I'm going to give things over to You and keep me from unclean thoughts, whether the unclean thought has to do with what you want to do with the person who pulls out in front of you.

12:36 I'm a tractor trailer driver. I get that a lot. There are people out there that should not be allowed to drive just because of their safety, some of the things that they do, but for me to have ungracious thoughts about them is a sin. So I'm not responsible for them. I'm responsible for how I react to them.

12:57 Covetousness. Covetousness is that secret sin that all of us have. You see somebody that someone else has, and sometimes it's not even you wanting it for yourself. It's you wishing they didn't have it. How come they get to have that?

13:19 It's not even you wanting it for yourself. And that is the opposite of love. We can see that. Filthiness or foolish talking or jesting this has to do with the things that we say. And we have been conditioned in this world that bathroom humor is fun, and I fall guilty to that.

13:46 And it's a terrible thing that some of it is actually really funny. But we're Christians, And I think sometimes at work and someone says something, it startles a laugh out of you, but I think that's the time when you need to turn and walk away because we don't need to have our lives characterized by dirtiness because that is the opposite of true love for the Lord and the saints. It's hard to love a holy God when we're dirty vessels, And I'm going to mention this has to do walking in love, everything, every aspect of the nature of God. One of the things have any of you read The Knowledge of the Holy by Tozer? It's just a wonderful book.

14:48 One of the points that he makes that I think is interesting is that unlike a fictional character, some fictional characters, they have attributes to their personality that aren't connected to the other attributes of their personality. So you could have a really wicked man, but likes dogs. Adolf Hitler was like that. With the Lord Jesus, every aspect of His character is intimately linked with every other aspect of His character, and so the Lord Jesus Christ's love that we're to imitate is a holy love. And it's a just love, it's a righteous love, and it's an omniscient love, and every other, every aspect of the Lord Jesus' character is unified.

16:11 And so we need to be careful what kind of jokes we tell. We need to be careful what we find funny. We need to be careful which YouTube videos we share with our friends and family because you can put things into your mind that you can never then get them out again. And it's important. There's the old phrase, garbage in, garbage out.

16:36 But it's not just an idea of keeping ourselves clean to please God somehow, but we're doing this because the Lord Jesus loved us, and in return, we want to love and walk in that love, and it involves not just walking in love, but walking in holiness, and that's an important thing. Let no man deceive... Okay, hold on, back to verse five. For this ye know that no whoremonger, that's a person who is involved with prostitutes or even pornography, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. And so this is people who have this characterization of their lives.

17:21 This is saying, and I'm not saying that if there's a Christian who struggles with this thing, they don't have anything, but the people in this world who have this as the thing that is the main thing in their life, they don't have an inheritance with Christ and with God. And so we need to make a choice: are we going to walk in love or walk like the world? I just refer you to Psalm chapter one as a sort of an overarching story about this, Blessed is the man who does not walk, sit or stand, And you have walking, sitting, and standing in the book of Ephesians. You see that in the book of Ephesians two. And so, want to walk, sit, and stand in a way that's pleasing to the Lord and not walk, sit, and stand with the counsel of the ungodly in the way of sinners and the seat of the scornful.

18:16 We just need to make sure that we're where we need to be. And again, this is all done through faith. Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them, for ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light, and the Lord walk as children of light. I was curious about vain words.

18:47 What does that have to do? And I went through and did a very quick study. I have eSword on my phone, which is a wonderful thing, and it's interesting when you look at vain vanity and worthless. Most of the time in the epistles, it is linked to law keeping, which I thought was very interesting. He says, We are not redeemed with corruptible things from your vain tradition.

19:18 Your vain tradition. It's in one Peter. And there's a number of places. Now there's other vain things that are talked about in the epistles, but when it talks about vain words, particularly in two Peter chapter two and in Jude, the vain words have to do with a form of godliness that involves a following of extra biblical principles in order to please God. And so there is ritualism involved with vain words.

19:53 I'm just saying that that's what I think this is referring to. I just did a search, and that's a search that you could possibly do if you're interested in it. I'm not going to go into all of it right now because the clock is moving fast. But it's interesting that there are so many attempts on the television and on the internet and on the radio of people wanting to say that they're following the Lord, but there's a formula that you need to follow, or you need to sometimes give money to this particular group. I've heard all kinds of things.

20:35 As I say, I'm a truck driver, and I roll through the Christian stations as I'm rolling down the road because, well, it's either that or fall asleep at the wheel, so you've got to keep your mind going. And some of the stuff that I've heard truly fits the vain traditions and a lot of it has to do with keeping rules. Again, this goes back to what I said at the beginning about faith. We can only access walking in love and obeying these things by just believing that God is able to do it and just throwing ourselves out on Him and not attempting to force ourselves to do it. And that's what the vain words seem to be pointing us toward.

22:17 Well, let's look over two books to the book of Colossians and verse chapter one verse 12, it says, Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. And so we have here another idea about how that we are partakers of the light, the saints in light, and we're told that we've been delivered. Delivered. That has a couple of meanings. One is what I do.

23:08 I take parcels and crates and pallets from point A to point B, and I make sure they get to where they're going. Usually, it's a loading dock somewhere. But there's another word delivered, an old English word that means that you were saved from danger. Okay? So delivered from darkness.

23:31 Darkness has the idea of, Nobody wants to be in darkness. We think of darkness and we think of it as when it gets dark at night or when we turn the lights out, and that's sort of dark. But the darkness that this is talking about is the complete absence of any kind of light. If you've ever been in a cave and they've turned out all the lights, you understand what kind of darkness I'm talking about. It's pitch black.

23:58 You can't see your hand in front of your face. Light comes from God, and all of the good things that come from God have some of God's light in them. Well, let's look at some more of this. I don't want to go too deep into it from here, but we have here that God has delivered us from darkness and translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son. Let's look over to John chapter one.

24:25 We're going to talk about who is this dear son. We're going to start in verse well, the beginning of the chapter. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.

24:51 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended or overcame it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John, the same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh in the world.

25:18 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not but as many as received him, to them he gave he power or authority to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born not of the blood, blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the... I'm reading that wrong. Which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Okay, so this light that came into the world is the Lord Jesus and it says, as many as received Him, to them He gave the power or authority or fitness to become sons of God.

26:10 It's interesting, I meant to say something. In verse 12 of Colossians, it says, Giving thanks unto the Father who has made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints and light. So we need God to make us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints and light. God has to do a work for us in doing this. However, it says here, there's also the responsibility to receive Him, and if you receive Him, you become fit to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints and light.

26:45 Okay, one more passage and then a brief discussion of it, then we'll get back to the original passage. John three sixteen, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting light. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

27:31 For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought and gone. The Lord Jesus Christ and the God the Father loved us so much that the Son of God came and gave His life and died on a cross, and when He died on the cross, God the Father laid your sin, all of them, and my sin, all of them, on Him and punished Him for them. And if we receive that, we are given, God suits us, God gives us the authority. You have the authority from God to call yourself a son of God.

28:23 Isn't that an amazing thing? And you're moved, you're translated. The word translated is a great word. It always reminds me of, I wasn't much of a Trekkie, but I did watch a few episodes of Star Trek, and they would have this thing and there would be sparkles, and you'd go from one spot to another, and all of a sudden you were transported. It's different.

28:44 It's better than that because not only are you transported, just physically change places, but you were darkness. Everything inside of you was darkness and you're translated into the kingdom of His Son and in Ephesians it says, Ye were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Isn't that an amazing thing? We can be the light of have the light of God inside of ourselves, but the light has come into the world and the condemnation against the world is that men love darkness rather than light. Please don't be that person.

29:25 Please don't be that person. You can love darkness rather than light because your deeds are evil. So if you have any questions of what I'm talking about, since I'm running out of time, I'm happy to talk with you. If you are not sure that you are light in the Lord, we'd like to make sure that you are before you leave today, okay? Talk to any of the believers here or me and we'd be happy to walk you through that.

29:56 Okay, back to Ephesians chapter five, Ye were sometimes darkness, and now are ye light in the Lord. That's an amazing thing. It's not saying that you were children of darkness and now children of light. It's not saying you were in darkness and now you are in light. It says you were, you were made of darkness and now you are made of light.

30:20 You are light. Isn't that an amazing thing? Christ is the light that came and shown to every man that is in the world and now we share that aspect of his being. Not as Moses, who had to go and look at the speak face to face with God and he reflected the light. We are light.

31:05 And so the other stuff sounds wrong to me, but I realize that there are shortcomings of the King James Version. The word prove there has the idea of proving of metal, and it's a demonstration of purity. So it's demonstrating what is acceptable unto the Lord. So as we walk as children of light, we demonstrate in our lives what is acceptable unto the Lord by how we treat other people and how we avoid these sinful things that we've been talking about. And it says we're not to have fellowship with these unfruitful works of darkness.

31:41 So, one of the things that's really important as believers is as we walk by faith according to the Scriptures, We read the Scriptures, we realize that we fall short of the Scriptures, and rather than get depressed about how far short of the Scriptures, we say, Well, you know, you have said that I could do this. There's a brother in the Lord named Wade LeBlanc, and he made a point once that has stuck with me. He said, Any commandment that God gives you to follow in the Scriptures is an implied promise. If God says for you to do it, but it's something that in your flesh you can't do, that's an implied promise. If you ask God to fulfill that in your life, He says, Anything that you ask according to My will, I will do it.

32:31 Well, if God says it, if God tells you to do it, it's according to His will. That's a given, right? If God says for you to do something, you can ask Him to work it out in your life that you do it, and He has promised that He will do it. And so if you don't think you're walking as a child of light this morning, if you don't think that you are light in the Lord, if you are having fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness and you're having trouble reproving them, It's not up to you to kind of steal yourself up and grit yourself up by some sort of internal, you know, strength that you somehow actually don't have, but you can come to the Lord and say, Lord, I'm struggling with this, but Your Word says that I should do it. And if Your Word says that I should do it, then I believe that You are promising me that you can fix that through your spirit and you can make it so that I act in the way that you want me to act.

33:39 And so I'm going to trust you for this. I'm going to trust you today for this. I'm not going to trust you for the next ten years, or the next fifteen years, or even for the week. I'm just going to say, Lord, today I want to walk in the light. I want to reprove the unfruitful works of darkness today, just today, for the next ten minutes maybe, and trust in the Lord.

34:10 And it's a promise. It says he's not slack concerning his promises. He's long suffering. And so, when we don't quite get to where he up to his expectations, he well, remember the fact that he is omniscient. He knew that would happen.

34:32 It's not like it's a surprise to God when you fail. It's not a surprise. And here's one thing that I think is really important to remember. When you fail, you can really beat yourself up. Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ knew about your failures and the things you would do after you were saved and still died for you?

34:52 He paid for those things on the cross at Calvary. Doesn't give you an excuse to do them and wallow around in them. No, no, no, no. But he understands. Ephesians chapter four, it's really a wonderful thing.

35:11 It says, We don't have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. Infirmities is weakness, the idea of weakness. He can have compassion on the ignorant and them that are out of the way. Isn't it wonderful that we have a high priest who understands the point of failure that we're going to have here in following all of this? But this is a wonderful thing to aim for.

36:03 So this is a warning. We're told, Be sure your sins will find you out. They're going to come out. You can't hide it forever. It changes your personality and changes your character if you're continuing in things.

36:18 The only thing that you can do about a besetting sin is bring it to the Lord. He is the only one that can deliver you from that. Psychology can't do it. Turning over a new leaf can't do it. Even accountability really can't do it.

36:35 The Lord is the only one. It says, If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sins. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Then it says, If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

37:10 So we can keep coming back to the Lord in faith and getting rid of the unfruitful works of darkness. All things that are reproved are made manifest by the light. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Wherefore, be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

37:39 There's three passages that are very similar to this or two others, and I commend them to you to your study. In the book of one Thessalonians, I believe it's in chapter five. Let me just look real quickly. I have this thing where I go to say a number when I'm up in front of people, and it just goes away. Okay.

38:01 Yes, in chapter five and verse four, there's another treatment of the idea of darkness and light. It says, But ye brethren are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief. And so I'm going to say verses four, four through 11 of one Thessalonians chapter five, and then in Romans 13, I think it's 11 through the end of the chapter, there's parallel passages and both of them are talking about waking up and walking in the day and not in the darkness. So, I commend those to you to look at. But here, we're to awake the ones who sleep, we're to arise from the dead, and Christ will give us light.

38:48 It's interesting that he's speaking to believers and asking them to wake up. I have often there have been occasions when I preached that I've wanted to shout this verse because the snores were starting to the one brother was starting to disturb some of the other people, but I'm always afraid to give someone a heart attack, so I don't do that. But anyway, and we're to arise from the dead. That's an interesting phraseology. Get your little computer program out and look up life and death in the life of the believer and meditate on those things.

39:50 And for those of you who have been in the military, this has to do with situational awareness, being aware of what's going on around you. And it's important as a Christian life not to just blunder through your life. Being aware, not just of what's happening around you so that you can avoid sin, but also the opportunities that God puts you in your path so that you can demonstrate the love of Christ. You're walking because you're awake, because you're arisen from the dead, because you're walking in the light, we have more information than the lost people around us do. We really do.

40:33 We know what's happening. We know where it's at, to use the old '70s phrase. And so we can walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, and that gives us the ability then to buy back the time, to redeem the time. The days are evil, so we need to do what we can to live for the Lord in the midst of this evil time. And we're not to be unwise, but to understand the will of the Lord.

41:02 Now, I commend to you a quick study of one Corinthians two, where it tells us how we're to know what the will of the Lord is, and the end of that is that we have the mind of Christ, and we can know what things God wants us to know about this world, about ourselves, about sin, about righteousness, about any topic, any topic that you have questions or trouble in your mind about, the mind of Christ is available to you. Read first Corinthians chapter two, there's a promise in that that's really really spectacular. So we're not to be unwise, but understand what the will. And then here, this whole idea of drunkenness with wine, I think, doesn't just apply to drinking, although that, you know, getting drunk with wine is a bad thing, but that you can fill your mind and your life with things that dull your senses and try to get satisfaction through stimulants in the world, whether it's the latest TikTok video or your screen, whatever it is you're doing on your screen, but be filled with the spirit. So doing things that are excessive, that lead to excess, dulls us to being led by the Spirit.

42:33 Whether it's wine or too much time on Facebook or TikTok or and I'm not saying that any of these things are necessarily evil in and of themselves. What I am saying is if that's what you're filling your mind and your heart and your senses with, you're not going to be able to be led by the Spirit. And one of the demonstrations of being led by the Spirit is a song in your heart to the Lord. And as you're going through your day, when you're laying in bed at night, it might be a good idea to think, What songs did I sing in my heart to the Lord today? Just to review.

43:14 And if you realize that you haven't sung songs to the Lord, you might want to think, Okay, what was I doing instead of singing songs to the Lord? And I can't tell you what it is that you're doing that's taking the place of that. I don't know you. However, that's a good gauge as to whether you're filled with the Spirit or you're letting in Colossians, it says, to let the Word of God dwell in you richly. One of the evidences of letting the Word of God dwell in you richly and that you're full of the Holy Spirit is a song to the Lord in your heart, and number two, being thankful for everything.

43:54 If you have a thankful heart to God and you have a song to God in your heart, it's a pretty good indication that you're walking in love, in the light circumspectly, and you're full of light yourself. And again, I can't do this on my own and neither can you. But faith accesses the grace of God and the power of God in your life. And if you believe that God will do this for you, not in some sort of academic way that, Yes, of course, I believe that God could do that, but you actually believe you have a relationship with the God of the universe and you realize that He loves me and He wants me to please Him and so I'm just going to let it I'm going to trust that He'll do that for me. Why then, you too can do what these things say.

45:01 If you don't do that, you can't and you won't. Heavenly Father, we come to you now and we commit ourselves to the word of your grace and this testimony that you've given us through the Apostle Paul. And we confess that we are a needy people, that we not only are we a needy people, but we are bankrupt spiritually speaking in and of ourselves. But we are so thankful that we have all of the resources of the God of the universe at our disposal by faith. Help us, Lord, by faith to do the things that we've been admonished to do by this writer.

45:47 We know that we can't do them, but we have Your Spirit and we have the mind of Christ, and we have Your promises, great and precious promises that are what we need for life and godliness. So, thank You for this time today. We pray that it would be a help to me first and then also to everyone that has heard it. We pray it in Christ's name, Amen.