The Grace of The Lord Jesus Christ Be with Your Spirit - Part 1 | Mike Criswell

It is so good to be here tonight and I want to thank you for

being here. It's been 7 years.

I think that we discovered that the last time I came and it's

cooler this year, which I'm glad of.

But nonetheless, it's great to see many of you who I've not

seen in many years, some of you I have seen recently, but it's

just good to be back and good to see each one of you and meet new

folks as well. I was talking to Frankie and

talking to Terry. There's been some growth in the

congregation. And when I talked to Frankie

about what we might do during this meeting, he mentioned a

couple of things. And I said, well, I've got this

little series on Philippians. And he said that might be a good

series. Now, I have to give a little bit

of a disclaimer. I'm a little ADD.

So I prepared a bunch of PowerPoint presentations for

this series on Philippians, and I probably won't end up using

any of them, but nonetheless, we are going to use the Bible.

We are going to use the text. And so if you have your New

Testaments with us or with you rather, I would invite you to

follow along each night that we study, each time that we study,

and we're just going to go through in an expository

fashion, the Book of Philippians.

Now, of course, there's many different ways of perhaps

figuring it out or perhaps, you know, analyzing a little little

bit. But nonetheless, I want us just

to look verse by verse. In fact, one of the things I do

at home is I encourage the teachers at home to teach

expositorily. Now, some people think, well,

that's like the old chapter studies.

Well, it's similar. But in reality, I'm never very

concerned about getting through an entire chapter.

You know, back in the day when I was a child, we would grow up.

And if the chapter had 70,000 verses, you covered 70,000

verses. And maybe, you know, by the time

was over with, you were a little worn out.

But you know, in reality, my, my purpose in going through the

Scriptures verse by verse is to just dig out from them things

that are practical and also perhaps at times things that are

technical. And I think the book of

Philippians is a great book for that because Paul is writing to

a congregation that he loves very dearly.

And while this book has a lot of technical things in it, and

we'll talk about that as we go through, there are a lot of

practical things in this book that apply to all of us as

Christians. And so whether you've been in

the faith for years and years, whether you're old in the faith

or maybe you've just been baptized and maybe you're a

young person in the Lord, the book of Philippians talks to us

because it's such a practical book.

You know, just to give you a little background about the

church at Philippi, Paul establishes this congregation

and acts the 16th chapter. This is on his second missionary

journey, and he receives what some people call the Macedonian

call. He is in a vision and this

person says, come over into Macedonia and help us.

And so he and his helpers go over into Macedonia and there

they go to the city of Philippi. Now, the city of Philippi was a

very interesting city because first of all, the church that's

going to be established in Philippi was the first church on

European soil. It was in Macedonia, but it is

what we now think of as Europe. And so it's a very pivotal point

in the ministry of the Apostle Paul.

And so very interesting things happen as he goes there.

In fact, seven years ago, I looked at my old notes.

We talked about the conversion of the Philippian jailer, but

there were some things that happened before that.

Paul goes and it begins to preach in that city and he

encounters this woman who is possessed and she is a fortune

teller and she has handlers that take care of her.

And Paul, of course, rebukes that.

And eventually Paul and Silas, who is with him at the time,

find themselves in a Philippian jail.

They find themselves in a Roman prison, and of course, you

remember the story, how that at midnight, having been beaten and

having been chained to the wall, they are singing songs of praise

to God for God allowing them to go through this difficulty.

There's a great earthquake, and then, of course, the Philippian

jailer rushes out. He's going to kill himself.

But Paul preaches to him and Long story short, he's

converted. Well, there is a little nucleus

there along with Lydia, who had previously met no doubt, that

begins the church in Philippi. Now, the Philippian church

apparently wasn't a rich church, and as many congregations are of

the Lord's church, we're just common everyday people and

oftentimes there is a mixed bag of backgrounds and interests and

so on and so forth. And so Paul, he nurtures this

group and they then become one of his most ardent supporters in

preaching the gospel. In fact, he will say that at

times they were the only ones that supported him in going to

and fro back then. As it is now, it takes money for

an individual, a preacher, to go and preach the gospel to new

territory. And so Paul was always thankful

for the gifts that he would receive from Philippi and their

love for him and their prayers for him.

And so really what you have in the book of Philippians is a

little bit of a thank you letter.

Paul is writing them saying, I love you so much and I want to

encourage you just as you have encouraged me.

Now, the city of Philippi was an interesting city because it was

a Roman city. It was named after Philip the

2nd, and the Roman city was, shall we say, an emulation of

the city of Rome. There were imperial cities

scattered throughout the Roman Empire, and these cities,

Philippi being one of them, sought to be just like Rome.

Now, of course, Rome was the capital.

In fact, you've heard the expression all roads lead to

Rome. And of course, Rome was where

the emperor was. Rome was where the bigwigs were.

Rome was where the pontificate, you know, the status was.

Well, that's what Philippi was on a smaller scale.

And of course the people in Philippi considered themselves

ultra Roman citizens. And that of course will make

Paul's later words when he says, well, your citizenship is in

heaven. That makes that even more

poignant. And of course, in the city like

Philippi, as in Rome, you had the emperor who was believed to

be God. He was believed to be deity.

Now as Rome conquered the ancient world, they didn't

always seem to care about the local gods and goddesses.

Not until someone said, well these are exclusive.

As long as you were willing to take a pinch of incense or some

money or offer some sacrifice to the emperor as a God, they were

quite happy to leave you alone. Well, of course, Jesus was Lord

to the Christians. There is one Lord Paul told the

Ephesians in Ephesians 4. And so they here at Philippi

would not offer that incense. They would not OfferUp the honor

to the emperor as the emperor wanted.

And so they often were set aside to be persecuted.

Now, we don't know a lot about that in Philippi, but we do know

that they were in a city that no doubt was very difficult to live

a Christian life. You know, we are in a world

today where it is difficult to live a Christian life.

It is not easy. In fact, sin and all kinds of

idolatry, maybe not the kind they had, is all around us.

We are being tempted by all kinds of things, from sexuality

to immorality to, you know, greed.

And that is exactly what the Philippians had to go through as

well. And they were, of course,

hanging on. They were trying to be the best

Christians that they could be. So Paul encourages them.

In fact, not only that, but as we'll notice as we go through

our study, he sees them as partners with him in spreading

the gospel. You know, sometimes again, we

think, well, the world's too bad.

The world is so wicked, we will never get converts to Christ.

Paul didn't see it that way. In fact, the darker the night,

the greater the light shone, the greater Jesus could come forth

and help these people out of sin and darkness.

And while indeed our world is getting dark, while indeed our

culture is changing, we are arguably, or perhaps not even

arguably anymore a non Christian society.

There is room for the gospel. I love the song that we just

sang and I love the theme of some of the other songs that we

sang. You know, we are here tonight

because of the gospel. Now, what is the gospel?

I don't want to get off on a rabbit trail too far.

That's easy for me to do. By the way, I guess I'm a little

ADD and I learned this week on a podcast that I can't help it,

that that's the way we are in our brains.

But nonetheless, that's not my excuse anyway.

But nonetheless, what is the gospel?

Well, I think the gospel is a very broad actually a concept.

You know, when Jesus came and John the Baptist came, the

gospel was at that moment, repent, for the Kingdom is at

hand. King Jesus is breaking forth

into the scene. And of course, as Jesus

established or began to establish his Kingdom and his

church, of course the gospel became more about other things

as well. Death, burial, resurrection of

Jesus, coronation, ascension, you know all that.

And so the gospel is a broad spectrum, but at the core, the

gospel is about our relationship with God.

It's about how that man was estranged, how that we were

separated from God, and yet God sent his Son.

John 316 God so loved us, He loved the world that he sent his

only begotten Son. And that's really what the book

of Philippians is all about. It's about this encouragement to

remain faithful in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, of course, the letter that Paul writes is an interesting

letter because along with Colossians and Ephesians and

perhaps one or two others, it's known as a prison epistle.

You see, Paul had it rough. He would go and preach and at

times he would end up in prison, such as he had at Philippi.

But it's believed that this letter that we're going to be

looking at this week was written by Paul, probably from Rome.

Now, some people believe Ephesus, but more than likely it

was from Rome. Paul probably in his first Roman

imprisonment. And scholars believe that at the

end of the book of Acts, he's in prison.

But then he's let go and he goes on to preach again.

He is re incarcerated and beheaded.

But probably Paul is in a a Roman prison, perhaps under

house arrest, perhaps whatever. But he is writing these letters

back to Colossae and to Ephesus and to Philippi, encouraging

them in the faith. In fact, when you read Ephesians

and Colossians and Philippians, you're going to find a lot of

similarities because they're all written about the same time,

maybe about 62 or so AD they're all written while Paul is in

prison. Many times he will repeat

himself and, you know, talk about the same themes like any

of us would when we write letters.

And so you can expect when you read those letters or those

prison epistles to find a lot of overlap.

But yet there's also differences.

You know, Ephesus or the Ephesian letter speaks of Christ

and the church. It speaks of the grand scheme of

redemption. It speaks of how Jews and

Gentiles are brought together in the church.

The book of Colossians speaks of the headship of Jesus Christ,

and the book of Philippians speaks of the membership.

That's us. Now, of course, the book of

Philippi or Philippians wasn't written to us directly, but it

was written for us. You see, the New Testament comes

down to us today, and it teaches us how we need to live.

It teaches us how we need to serve God and how we need to

please God as well. Now Paul is in prison, so he's

got a problem. He's in prison, but yet he's

writing. He longs to see them.

He is praying that he'll be released, and he begins to talk

to them about how he even believes that through their

prayers and through their power and through their piety, he's

going to be able to accomplish that.

You know, that's wonderful because if you look at yourself

in the mirror, as we all do, what do we see?

We see mere mortals. We see people who at times, as

we prayed, in our prayer, make many mistakes.

We see ourselves who are at times so far away from God.

We see ourselves who don't really know where to go from

here because we don't have all wisdom and knowledge, you see,

But we're human. And these people here at

Philippi, we're human. And yet Paul has enough

confidence in them to say, listen, you are partnering with

me in the gospel. You know, I know that if you're

a preacher or teacher leader, if you're just a member, you covet

the prayers and you covet the help of those of your brothers

and sisters. You know, when I go overseas or

when Frankie goes overseas or when someone travels, you know,

they covet the prayers of those who are thinking about you.

And you know, a preacher would much rather have a member or a

leader would much rather have the members who are dedicated at

home to the Lord than $1,000,000 in their bank guarantee you,

because that just gives him a strength of purpose and knowing

that they are standing behind him.

Well, that's Philippi as we look at this letter.

Now, when we begin, Paul writes, and I hope we don't get too

tedious in looking at details. You know, one of the problems

with preachers is they'll start looking at a passage and they'll

begin to analyze it. And pretty soon they're off in

left field. And that is especially dangerous

if that preacher has been maybe writing commentaries or

something, because then you get off into all kinds of things.

But we want to stay with the text fairly quickly, move

through it. We won't get very far tonight,

maybe into chapter 1. But let's just see what Paul has

to say to this Philippian church.

First of all, he says Paul and Timothy bond servants of Jesus

Christ. Now Timothy is the helper of

Paul. He's the young protege.

He's the one that Paul trains. Paul calls him his son in the

faith. Paul is the agent apostle and

they have been travelling. Paul takes Timothy with him.

He is learning the rope, so to speak.

But Paul says that he is a bondservant of Jesus Christ.

In the Greek, the idea is Doulos or one who has been slaved to

Christ, one who has given up his own rights to be a servant of

Jesus Christ. You know, in reality, when we go

down into the waters of baptism, we are pledging to give our

lives to Christ. We are pledging to give up our

will to the will of God. You know, Jesus has always been

a person and A and a Savior who wanted will our wills to conform

to him. His will conformed to the Father

in the garden. He would say things like Father,

let this cup of suffering pass from me, but nevertheless, not

my will, but thine will be done. Paul had given himself hook,

line, seeker, whatever analogy you want to use to God, so much

so that he could say, listen, I would rather die now and go be

with the Lord, but it's helpful for me to stay and to help you.

Now that is truly an altruistic statement Paul makes, but it's

not one of despair. Paul wants to go be with the

Lord because he knows that's better.

And then he says this. He says to all of the Saints in

Christ Jesus who are in Philippi with the bishops and deacons.

Let me camp out that on that just a little bit.

He says to all the Saints. Now you notice Paul doesn't say

to all the church members. Now you could have said that

these folks at Philippi were members of the Lord's church,

but he says no to all of the Saints.

Now why did he say that? Well, first of all, I think he's

telling them, listen, you hold a very high esteem position in the

Lord's body. You know, if you're a member of

the Lord's church, if you've been baptized for the ministry

of sins, you're certainly part of the Kingdom, you're part of

the Lord's church, but you're a St.

Now, you know, when you compare what the world today, even the

religious world, thinks of as a St. versus what the scriptures

talk about as being a St. you'll see two very distinct, different

pictures. Now, in the religious world, a

St. first of all, is someone who is usually dead, someone who has

gone on. Maybe they have been beatified,

maybe they have been elevated, but some organization has said

this individual has been such a stellar person that we're going

to knight him, so to speak, as a St.

And of course, a lot of different groups have different

rigmaroles they go through to get that job done.

But now in the New Testament, if you're a St. you're a living

person. You are a living sacrifice, as

Paul talks about in Romans 12/1 through 4.

You are someone who is serving God in a holy way.

It's about holiness. Now, the idea of being a St. is

the idea of being sanctified. We use that term sometimes, and

in the Bible they used it a lot. In fact, when you go back to the

Old Testament, you find that often times things were

sanctified that just simply meant they were set apart for a

special service. For example, in the Tabernacle,

in the temple of the Old Testament, you have various

instruments, you had tables, you had, you know, cups and platters

and different things. And in and of themselves those

items were just common, everyday, ordinary items.

But when they had been sprinkled with the blood, when they had

been set apart for holy service, they became extremely important

and they became special. They became sanctified.

They became set aside for a very special purpose in the service

of God. When you were baptized, When I

was baptized, we were set aside. We were sanctified, we were set

apart to serve God. And God looks at us not just as

average Joes, although he loves average Joes, but he looks at

those of us who have espoused his Son Jesus and really married

the Lord, if you will, as being sanctified.

Now when we think of being sanctified, we also think of

purity, and that is also a part of it.

You know, in those Old Testament dishes and things that they had,

they would have washings and have ceremonies to, to cleanse

them. Well, of course we have that

obligation today in our lives to live holy lives, to live clean

lives, to live, if we can, as sinless as possible.

But a St. is not perfect. Sanctification is not quite the

same as perfection. You know, anything that is

human, anything that touches humanity is going to be

imperfect to some degree, but it can still be set apart for the

Lord. And maybe some of you have come

into the Lord. Maybe your past is, you know,

dark, or maybe it's scarred with all kinds of sins and problems,

and maybe you're still struggling to overcome some of

those sins. Now that's OK.

It's not OK that we have sin, but it's OK that we struggle

against those. I would much rather have someone

come to me and say I am struggling with this sin, help

me overcome this sin, tell me what the scriptures say about

the sin, then just ignore it and live with it and never address

it. You see, sanctification is not a

one time deal. It's not where we go down into

the waters of baptism. We come up perfect and we stay

perfect all of our lives. No, we still live in a fallen

world and we still deal with a fallen fleshly nature.

And so then we have to constantly work on being

sanctified. So Paul calls them Saints.

He doesn't call them perfect people.

He says Saints now very quickly take a little hiatus here and

look at the next little statement, he says to the

bishops and deacons who are in Philippi.

You know, apparently, by this time, the Church of Philippi had

matured. Now, just recently, Brother

Frankie came over and helped us at 85th and Euclid in Kansas

City to ordain elders and or, or, or bishops, or shall we say,

you know, the names of, of the shepherds, if you will, of those

of that congregation. And of course that congregation

has been there for years. And finally we have our first

elders or our first bishops, if you will.

It's all the same same job. It's just different words in the

Greek. But nonetheless, Frankie came

and helped us do that. Well, here there are bishops and

deacons, servants of the Church at Philippi.

So apparently the Church at Philippi, though it had started

with perhaps Lydia and the Philippian jailer, had by this

time grown to have real solid leadership.

And by the way, you know, solid leadership is very important.

Now, a congregation can exist quite scripturally without

elders per SE, but it has to have leadership.

In fact, in Acts chapter 13, I think it is you there have

Acts 13 · chapter mention

apostles and teachers and prophets.

You don't have elders mentioned, but they're a strong

congregation that is sending out preachers to preach the Word.

So a congregation without elders can certainly do the Lord's

work, but we strive for that greater level of leadership

maturity. And sometimes it takes many

years, especially in a transient society like we live in.

But Philippi had the pleasure of enjoying that.

You know, I entitled the, the study initially was, oh, what

grace? And of course, when you think

about grace, you think about God's unmerited favor, and

that's certainly part of it. But I also think Philippi was a

Church of graciousness, partly because of their leadership.

They had people who were setting the example, no doubt for them.

And then he says in verse 2, grace to you and peace from our

from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is a very common greedy in Paul's epistles.

In fact, I think all but Galatians, you'll find this

common grace and peace wish and of course grace God's a merit of

favor, peace coming from a proper relationship with God.

But then you notice what he says in verse three.

He says, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.

From the very moment these folks have been baptized and the

church had been established, I have no doubt that Paul thought

of them almost daily. Here was a church that he had a

very close relationship with. They were close to his heart.

He thought about them. He prayed for them.

He always remember them when he went to the Lord in prayer.

You know, that is so touching really, because sometimes we'll

be in an assembly maybe and we're busy and we leave and we

don't think about our brothers and sisters maybe all week.

Or maybe we don't think about people that maybe we should have

thought about because they had special needs.

You know, Paul must have just labored in prayer.

In fact, over in First Corinthians, the Second

2 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

Corinthians Chapter 11, he talks about all the things that he

went through and then he says and the care of the churches I

deal with on a daily basis. And you got to know that Paul

was praying over and over. He says, I remember you always,

verse 4 in every prayer of mine, making requests for you all with

joy. He is thankful for them.

He is thankful for that relationship.

He is thankful for their dedication, not just to him as a

person, but to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Why? Because it is only the gospel

that can save an individual. I can't save you.

No one else can save you, but Jesus can.

The gospel can, His blood can. And Paul understood that.

But notice what he says. He says, I pray for you, making

request with joy for you, for your fellowship in the gospel

from the first day until now. Now this is interesting to me

because we know from other passages that Philippi wasn't

necessarily a rich church. And obviously when it first

began, it wasn't big, but from that great inception, I suppose

when the Philippian jailer came out of the water, there was

already this what can we do for the Lord attitude.

You know, that's hard to maintain, that's hard to keep up

because we get discouraged. I tell you, you go be with the

work, you know, that maybe gone on for 50-60 years and you'll

see it decline. I mean, just give you a personal

example. The congregation where I am now

is fairly small, smaller than you all are here.

And, you know, at one point we were sitting out chairs and, you

know, the community was really behind us.

And and then gradually people moved and passed away and all.

And it is hard to keep that fire going.

It's hard to keep that zeal going.

And I think Paul saw in Philippi a group of people who were

constantly saying, Paul, what can we do to help you out?

This idea of fellowship is the Greek word Koinonia.

It's used of Paul extending the right hand of fellowship to

other men and women. It is also used of the Lord's

Supper. It is used of the collection.

In other words, it's a joint participation.

And so Paul viewed the Church of Philippi as his partners.

He wasn't in competition with them.

He wasn't trying to convert people so he could say, hey,

look what I did. No, the glory obviously

ultimately went to the Lord, but it was shared among every single

believer in the Church of Philippi.

Paul says, listen, that fellowship in the gospel from

the first day to now, you know, whenever this congregation

supports a preacher or supports one of their own to go to the

Philippines or whatever, you are in fellowship in more ways than

one with that individual. You are helping him, you are

sending him, you are helping spread the news.

You see, no one person could ever do it.

Even Jesus chose me to help him. And so when we have

congregations behind us as preachers or leaders who we know

that while we're not perfect, they have our back, it gives us

confidence, it helps us, it encourages us.

And we are so glad that despite both of our imperfections, they

are there for us. And then Paul goes on to verse

6. And he says, being confident of

this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will

complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

Now this day of Jesus Christ has been variously interpreted,

interpreted, probably the second coming, probably the end of

time. But nonetheless, he's saying the

Lord is going to continue to work in you.

The Lord is not done with you yet.

You know, that's a beautiful thought because sometimes

literally I get up in the mirror, I, I mean, I, I mean

this literally. And I think you are a worthless

something. I don't know what, you're just

worthless and you don't feel very good today and you don't

have a lot to offer the Lord. And then I think, no, the Lord

is not done with me yet. You know, we use that phrase.

He's a work in progress. Well, I guarantee you every one

of us is a work in progress and some are moving a little faster

than others. Some of us are a little bit

remedial, but nonetheless, the Lord is still using US.

You know, I love it when I see especially older folks because

I'm kind of one of them now. You know, I was out in

Kennewick, WA a couple years ago and I just came back just

really, really thrilled because you have seniors converting

seniors out there. You know, one of the couples out

there had met some other seniors at the mailbox and they began to

walk together and talk together. And then right after I left out

there, they were baptized. And I thought, man, this is

seniors converting seniors. You know, you never are too old

to be in fellowship with the job or the the work of the church.

You know, again, the Lord is still working in US and I

believe that now sometimes He works on us as far as our

character and our personage, because, you know, we got a lot

of rough edges sometimes. You know, my wife tells me, she

says, well, you know, your tongue is is your curse because

maybe you can speak, but then man, it's sharp.

And that's true. I thought my mind was sharp, but

apparently it's my tongue. But nonetheless, you know, she

cautions me about that. Well, I don't just tell her,

well, I'm a work in progress that that doesn't float with

her. But nonetheless, we are, we are

a work in progress. And so don't ever become

discouraged and think because I failed before, I can't succeed.

Don't ever think that because everyone fails, everyone sins,

everyone has problems. And yet God is not finished with

us. And Paul very, very, very

poignantly says that God is going to complete the work that

he has started in US. You know, the beautiful thing

about God is his Providence. I don't know what God has in my

life or in store for my life. I don't know.

I don't know if I'll make it home after this meeting.

I don't know if I'll go to Africa and be killed by, you

know, a lion. I don't know.

But, you know, God knows. But God uses us.

And So what do we do? We place our faith in the

Providence of God and say, God use me.

And I can guarantee you that it when you make yourself

available, God will use you. And it may not be in the way you

want to be used. It may be in something that you

think I'm a little too good for that.

No, you're not too good for that.

If that's where God puts you, then that's what's going to

happen. Now I don't know how all that

happens sometimes, but haven't you had circumstances where you

thought, man, somebody ought to do something about, oh, wait,

maybe it's me that ought to do something about this.

You see, God is using US and he will use us if we make ourselves

open to him. So then he says in verse 7, just

as it is, right, And we'll start summing up here, just as it is

right for me to think this of you all, in other words, this,

this exuberance, this happiness, this joy I feel for you.

It's, it's, it's justified, He says, just as it is, right,

Because I have you in my heart. You see, Paul, and he does this

by the way, with Philemon when he's writing about Onasemus, he

says Onasemus is my heart. That's runaway slaves, remember.

But Paul, he, he had such a dear love for his fellow Christians,

and I think others too, otherwise he wouldn't have

preached the gospel. But he had such a dear love for

his Christian brothers and sisters that they were living in

his heart That that that's incredible.

Because you see, I tend to categorize and compartmentalize

my heart. The good Christians, the guys I

like, the people I like, they're going to live here, the others

over here. No, Paul says, I love you.

You're in my heart. And he says in as much as both

in my chains. In other words, it is

imprisonment. And in the defense and

confirmation of the Gospels, you all are, are partakers with me

of grace going to stop there. But what's Paul saying?

He says, he says, listen, you all are in my heart.

You are with me. Whether I'm going through

prison, whether I'm being, you know, baptizing someone, whether

things are going well or going bad, you are in, you are with

me. We are partners.

We are, we're together now, you know, when a congregation feels

that way about each other. And that's one of the reasons

why we have activities we do together and we worship together

and we, you know, keep tabs on each other.

It's not to be, you know, intrusive.

It's because we love one another.

Or when a preacher, you know, goes, like I said, overseas and

he knows his congregation is praying for him.

It, it, it's, it's something that cannot be described because

you know that others servants of the Lord with as many flaws as

you have, and yet Saints are remembering you and

participating with you in the work of grace.

And so Paul will use that then to go on and encourage them that

their love and their knowledge and their wisdom will abound

more and more to the greater glory of the Lord.

So that's part of the 1st chapter.

Paul will get into some other things that we'll notice

tomorrow night. But nonetheless, as we go

through this book, just just follow the follow the train of

thought. Paul is so thankful and he's so

encouraging to them, although he will point out some things they

need to hear later on. And that's the way it is.

The gospel is the most precious thing that God has entrusted to

us. His preciousness is our life

itself. And Paul will talk about that

when he says, listen, you know, there's nothing more important

than serving Christ. Well, you're here tonight and

you're not a Christian. There's some very simple steps

that place us into the body of Christ, obeying the gospel,

hearing the word of God first of all, and align that to to

resonate in our hearts. It's called faith.

We believe it, and then we change our mind.

We turn from our previous life, we repent of our sins, and then

we're willing to confess Jesus as the Son of God.

We're willing to confess his lordship, if you will.

And then, of course, we are baptized.

We have our his blood washing away our sins in the waters of

baptism. It's quite simple, but yet it's

so incredibly profound. So not if we can assist you in

that or anything else in your spiritual walk, we'd be happy to

do that. I'll be standing, obviously.