You won't be surprised when I invite you to turn to Ephesians chapter 1 and we'll read once again from the first verse through to the end of verse 14.
Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 1, Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God to the Saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before HIM in love; He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight; making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time; to unite all things in HIM, things in heaven and things on earth; in HIM we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of HIM who works all things according to the counsel of His will; so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be, to the praise of His glory, in HIM you also when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in HIM were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it; to the praise of His glory. Amen .
Well, let's bow and pray together. Let us all pray. Father as we turn back to our Bibles, we affirm what we've been singing that we need You. We acknowledge that without the enabling of the Holy Spirit, words are just words, and so we need You to come and help us, both to speak, to hear, to understand, to believe, to live in the light of Your truth. And it is our expectation that having assembled us in this way that You will fulfill Your purposes in us and through us. That's what gives us hope and that's what enables us to keep doing what we do in the awareness that You are the One who, as Your Word is so brings life out of darkness and death, so accomplish Your purposes, we pray for Jesus sake, amen.
Well, I invite you to turn again to Ephesians 1:2 , what we've been referring to in a borrowed phrase as a great symphony of salvation. This long sentence that begins in Greek at the beginning of verse 3 and goes all the way through to the end of verse 14 without any punctuation at all and the English translators have done their best to punctuate it in a way that at least makes it readable.
Ephesians 1:3-14
Praise for Spiritual Blessings in Christ
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love
5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—
6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace
8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding,
9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ,
10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,
12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.
13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,
14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
One of the things that we want to make sure we are understanding is that in this story Paul is beginning with God the starting point is God verse 3 blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in other words he doesn't start with ours and proceed to God he starts with God and then comes towards the readers it's important because as we have said on a couple of occasions before any notion of religion in our day particularly in our culture is always cast in terms of man's endeavor to somehow or another engage with divinity somehow to meet God to find God to look for him and doubtless there are elements of truth in that insofar as people are wandering and wandering but the story of the Bible actually is the reverse of that the story of the Bible is a story of a God who takes the initiative in seeking out men and women and that is why it is important to that we recognize that we are talking here about the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ we're not talking here about a cosmic principle we're not talking about some kind of Pantheon's pantheistic a new-age notion of spirituality whereby God is somehow interwoven in creation we are part of creation therefore it so facto we are part of God therefore perhaps if we look inside of ourselves we might meet God no the Bible operates very very differently God is presented in the Bible as quite distinct from everything in creation he is outside of and distinct from there was no creation before the beginning in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth so when Paul says we're starting here with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ he is reminding us that God is the sustainer the controller of alI things and for Paul this was a Creator the fixed point and understandably because it is the revelation of God Himself when Paul addresses the Intelligencia or those who at least thought of themselves as such in Athens and he has opportunity to establish his his presentation as he designs he says I know you're religious and then he launched a straight-in and he says the God who made the world and everything in it that's where he starts with this declaration of God and here in great chapter he is describing the fact that it is this God who in an amazing way by grace alone in Christ alone through faith alone has chosen and adopted and redeemed and lavished His grace upon those who have come to him and with allI that said he still isn't finished and that of course is what he comes to in verse 11 there is still an inheritance that awaits us we've obtained it in one sense but if you look down to verse 14 you will see that there is also a sense in which we have yet to acquire it how is this well he tells us at the end of verse ten that God is operating according to a plan that he has set forth a plan for the fullness of time that he has set forth in Christ that little phrase fullness of time Paul uses elsewhere in Galatians he says that it was in the fullness of time that God sent forth His Son and now he says he has a plan for the fullness of time so if you're like the fullness of time was begun with the Incarnation and the fullness of time will reach his conclusion with the return of Jesus therefore we live within this timeframe and his plan for this time is to unite all things in HIM things in heaven and things on earth what was quite a thought isn't it the thought of unity the thought of the uniting of families that don't talk to each other the thought of uniting husbands and wives that are at enmity with one another the thought of putting sports teams together in a way where they actually are kind to each other and humble in their dealings with one another the thought of unity that exists amongst the nations of the world is quite a thought isn't it it's almost like a forlorn dream is like a notion that it seems to be absolutely unattainable because think about it this morning the fact that I mention husbands wives families sports teams office departments or nations there's not one of us is prepared to say that we live in such a sphere of tranquility and unanimity that nothing ever goes wrong and no one ever has their knows I would have joined and everybody's just having a wonderful time you go into your office in the morning and all hold hands and sing Kumbaya and then it's just a wonderful day from there isn't it now you've had about forty three emails before you even got into place two of them have annoyed you the other one wants to make you quit and so you just get on with your day from there and if you happen to tune in on the way to listen to a little bit of news about the world there'll be another reason for you to think well I don't think ever anything will ever be fixed at all well here's the promise he has a plan set forth in the fullness of time in Jesus to unite all things in him things in heaven and things on the earth well it's a very laudable and an understandable agenda isn't it to bring the nations of the world together the folksongs and the yeah the folk songs of the sixties in the early 70s had a great sense of that this land is your land this land is my land well the fact of the matter is that some are another yeah we got to share this thing this is ours but we can't share it because we're selfish and some people want it all and some people want the rest and so it goes on this morning when I clicked on the BBC news as a group of Syrian diplomats were assembling in Geneva for tentative peace talks concerning the nation there were two suicide bombers and a car bomb at a Shia shrine south of Damascus in Syria 45 people were instantaneously killed and many more are seriously wounded ( January 31, 2016) well this is at the very heart of everything that's going on isn't it and the Shia shrine it was there and swear one of Muhammad's granddaughters is buried a sacred place for Islam for the Shia Muslims so on and as those questions were presented in the debate the other evening to potential presidential candidates no matter how good an attempt they might make at it if you have any sense at all you know there is not one of those guys can fix this and all of them put together can't fix it well you say well this is a horrible experience it's a relatively nice Sunday morning We've come in here and you're explaining all these dreadful things no no that's not the story the story is that God has a plan for the fullness of time in Christ to fix this stuff and what you have in verses 11 through 14 is Paul giving a hint of what he's going to come back to about the way in which both Jew and Gentile are united in the economy of God as a result of the Work of the Son of God I've got to show that to you in just a moment the promise that has been given to the Jew is being fulfilled in the person of Jesus and His redemptive power is going to unite these people that's why the end of the story in Revelation 7 is of a company that no one can number from every tribe and nation and language and people and tongue and we find ourselves saying with a hymn writer I cannot tell how he will win the nation's how he will achieve his earthly heritage that's just straightforward that's just obvious isn't it all you need is a newspaper or the internet and say I cannot tell how he will do this but the promise is that he will do it now you will notice that there is this little hint here in verses 11 to 14 and as I say it will be developed as we go into chapter 2 and then into chapter 3 but if you notice three pronouns I think you'll be helped first of all in verse 11 in him we that is the first pronoun in him we then in verse 13 in him you and then in verse 14 who is the guarantee of our alright we you our now what's the significance of this well I take it or what Paul is referencing here in eleven and twelve is the description of the believing Jew of the Jewish person who has come to trust in Christ as their Messiah and as their Savior you remember when Paul wrote to the church at Rome he says to them that the gospel is to the Jew first is to the Jew first I wonder how much I wonder how much time we do we spend praying for our Jewish friends and neighbours and our work colleagues the people who are performing surgery on us at University Hospital are or are doing different things the Gospels for the Jew first and then on from there it's quite remarkable isn't it when we look to this the other Sunday evening we said how is it that God chose the Jew why did He choose this or why did He choose Abraham and the answer in Jerusalem e7 is that he chose them now because they were significant not because they were large he says but you were smaller than any other group of the people but I chose you because I loved you and if you asked why did he love them the answer is because he loved them how far is this getting you all right now think about your own faith and you don't believer this morning unless you've got a really really fat head which I can identify with unless you do you find yourself saying as you lie in your bed why did you choose me answer because I loved you why did you love me because I loved you in other words we bow down before the imponderable nature of God's amazing grace and that's what he's driving home here he's saying to these people isn't this an amazing thing all that God planned for His people is now there's it is in Christ that we have obtained an inheritance not separately from Christ but in Christ that's why that is such an important phrase for Paul, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation it is in him that we have this inheritance not in isolation from him it is in him that we have been adopted into his family it is in him that we have been united with Jesus Jesus who is the heir of all things so if he is the heir of all things and I am in him then guess what I have an heirloom that's coming my way as well in Jesus in fact when he writes to the church at Corinth he says of Jesus that all things are ours in Him that's first Corinthians 3:21 and following if you're looking for it all things are ours in Him the hymn writer says thou oh Christ art all I want and more than all in thee I find they see when we begin to fasten on the fact of all that is ours in Jesus the wonder of it then it changes the way in which we're able to look at everything else that is ours or the things that we wish were ours now you will notice that this is half and not haphazardly it has not emerged contingently but rather purposefully having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will what is going on this is what's going on we were reading Habakkuk the other morning at our pass our team meeting for prayer just briefly reading from it and and you might want to read that later on today it's very brief and Habakkuk starts out he says how long is that how long are we going to have to have this going on and why do you even allow it to go on are you going to do something and then the answer comes back yes I am going to do something and you're not going to like what I'm going to do you're going to be surprised by the way in which I do it and the people that I used to do I'm going to raise up the enemies against you in order to do this and eventually by the time Habakkuk gets to the end of it he says well listen if the whole thing collapses if the if the fig tree doesn't blossom if there's no fruit on the vine if if the whole economy hits the ground with a big calamitous crash he says yet I will rejoice in the Lord I will trust in the God of my salvation now you see that as a dimension of belief and a faith that is not contingent upon how well it's going for me how well it's going for us you see how we get it so upside down when we start with ours rather than with God God's plan and purpose is not to make our life's tranquil to answer all our questions but in order that we might be to the praise of his glory he says so we who werethe first to hopein Christ might be to the praise of His glory so what do you what are you supposed to do with your life well whatever you do do it to the praise of His glory what are you a banker a carpenter a homemaker a nonstop studying or students put a little sign somewhere just put up on the dashboard of your car to the praise of His glory to drive long distance across the nation oh here we go another mile Oh another day Oh another patient Oh another blood test Oh another spreadsheet Oh to the praise of His glory it changes everything doesn't it I find it quite daunting I'm not sure l've got it right you know when Wesley was asked if Jesus Christ was gonna come back within 24 hours what would you do he said well I just do what I was going to do I was I was supposed to go over and mr. and mrs. Sewn Sauce for my dinner and um I'll go over for my dinner and then I will go to sleep around 10 oʻclock and I waken up and I guess l'II be in glory by the time I wake up but l'II just go on business as usual you see what does it mean to live to the praise of His glory it doesn't mean to go off by yourself and climb up a tree and contemplate your navel or start reading the book or start reading the book of Revelation as fast as you can for as long as you can or or sing praise choruses all by yourself you know in a band and I in a cupboard no no I tell you what it means it means making your bed it means finishing your homework it means completing the sale it just means that it's just extraordinarily ordinary and he says we who were the first to hope in Christ who have been redeemed in this way have been brought into this position to the praise of His glory he goes on in verse 13 to the second in Him and he says in it in Him now including the Gentiles in HIM you also you also when you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation you see what apostle Paul is reminding us of and reminding his readers of is the fact that the Gentiles have been admitted into the spiritual property of Israel that the wonder of God's electing love was was not unique to the Jew but the Gentiles were also included in God's plan I think often we get this so wrong don't we when we think about ourselves and go back to some of our Jewish friends and talk to them as if we've got an entirely new thing here that's going if you go in that way to your Jewish friends you go wrong Lee you let's go to them and say you know what's an amazing thing the promişes that God made to Abraham fulfilled in the Messiah we've been allowed to get in on we got in on this he chose that we also might be included so that the church that is Church with a big C with a big Cis made up of spiritual Israel that is Christian Jews or converted Jews plus converted Gentiles who are privileged to share in the blessings of Israel that's where the church is it's not two separate lines running forward towards the return of Jesus the Israel line and the church line now it's just one line that's why when Peter writes in in 1st Peter he is able to take Old Testament language and apply it to his readers who are scattered throughout that and known world and are a mixture of Jey and Gentile and what and how does he address them he says you are a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation a people belonging to God or a people for his own possession the Jewish person says oh no no no no wait a minute now you're not no you are absolutely not that size Peter says no it is you but it's not just you because God in the amazing wonder of his love has included others so it ought to change the way we approach to his friends and neighbours instead of a kind of smug top-down thing about our deal rather we should be guarding them saying isn't that amazing that we got in on your deal the fact that you don't know you've got such a deal is something that I love to talk to you about but we're in on your deal you say I think you lost your mind no I think you lost your Bible Galatians chapter collations chapter 3 and verse 11 it is evident the gnomon is justified before God by the law for the righteous shall live by faith okay or the one who by faith is righteous shall live but the law verse 12 of Galatians 3 is not of faith rather the one who does them shall live by them Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us for it's written cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree here we go so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promise spirit through faith now what he does is he says and this hasn't happened in a vacuum but rather he describes the process or the pattern I think pattern is a better word the pattern of arade how has this come about verse 13 in HIM you also here we go when you heard the word of truth something happened somebody preached to them somebody told them about Jesus what is this word of truth it is truth as opposed to error it is reality as opposed to unreality John's Gospel is full of truth isn't it you heard this and this word of truth is the gospel what is this gospel well it is as we said last time not good advice about what you're supposed to do if you'd like to try and make yourself a Christian but rather good news about what God has done in Jesus so that you might be placed in a right relationship with him so it's not good advice as good news and he says you heard this you heard this it's so straightforward that we're in danger of missing it God speaks and we listen God is a speaking God he sends Jesus and Jesus stands forward in time and allof his miraculous works are to reinforce the word in time and all of his miraculous works are to reinforce the word that he speaks the time has come has fulfilled the kingdom of God is near repent and believe the good news and people say well what do you mean the kingdom of God is near and Jesus takes up water and turns it into wine he takes the sea which is the the picture of strife and chaos and disorder and he walks on it and so on you know doing magic shows he's declaring in a miraculous way the truth that comes from his lips and so he says you heard this you see in order to become a Christian you need a preacher you need somebody to speak to you doesn't have to be a preacher like this kind of preacher but you hear the word of truth and if you've been thinking about how you might become a Christian if you're trying to do it - the word of truth that is not going to happen because God has ordained that it is by this means when Jesus gives instruction to his disciples he tells them I don't want you to go out into the world until you receive the Holy Spirit the spirit of promise and then go they receive the spirit and what's the first thing they do preach they preach Peter stands up on the day of Pentecost and he preaches a big long sermon "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." fulfilling the commission of Christ Jesus given in Matthew 28:19 and as you follow through the Acts of the Apostles you discover that as the Word of God grows so the church grows and when the Word of God doesn't grow the church doesn't grow that's why there are lots of churches that are going through the routine but there's hardly any Bible in them at all if I don't see in any spirit of judgment it makes me sad but there's no Bible there's no growth why not because it is when you heard the word of truth the gospel that you then believed you can't believe without the something in which to believe when apostle Peter preaches on that day and he finishes his sermon it says that they were cut to the heart and they said what shall we do in other words there was conviction and he said repent and believe the good news and they did and there was conversion and they then got together and listened to the Apostles doctrine and to the teaching and to the breaking of bread and to the prayers there was community he preached conviction conversion community and when you think about it in relationship to church history the same is true you read any part of history and you realize that the period of the dark ages was a period where the Bible wasn't taught there was darkness the darkness was actually the absence of the light of God's Word shining into the place there was sacrament there was sacrament ad nauseum but the people did not have the Bible they never heard the Bible and guard lights a flame in the heart of Martin Luther we're going to celebrate 500 years of the reference next year all being well and he lights a flame and Luther becomes a preacher I say to you I wonder have you been listening to the Bible as it has been taught to you or read to you it's not again it's easy becoming a Christian there's not some kind of funny thing it involves the use of your brain, it involves your mind, later on in chapter 4 speaking about something else apostle Paul says to them he says but that is not the way you learned Christ, you learned Christ, the people got the part searchers are waiting for an existential experience, something to hit them, or jazz them, or zap them, or whatever else it is, and it hasn't happened, it's unlikely and that she sit on a pin or something, I don't know what's going to happen to you, no, but you could learn, couldn't you? you could apply your faculty of thinking, the sound mind that God has given you as an engineer or as a scientist or as someone who can understand verbs and adjectives, and you'll learn of Christ, you'll learn of who He is, of why He has come, of what He has done, you heard the word of truth, the gospel and then what happened to them? they actually believed it, they believed it, not just in terms of intellectual assent, well , I believe there is or I believe there was, but believing into Christ, believing with a kind of sitting down kind of belief you see, I can believe that, this is chair 🪑 suitable for my increasingly large frame that I have done no investigation of it at all, there- fore it will be definitely an act of faith now, in front of you, to take my seat, well there we are, it's worked, that's just as well, some of you are hoping that it wouldn't work and I would just be spread-eagle all across the platform here it would be a wonderful morning for you, you say we've never had a service like it, but you see, I can believe everything about this chair 🪑 and never sit down upon it, and you can believe everything about Jesus and never believe into Him and give up yourself into Him, trust yourself into Him, fall into Him, rely on Him entirely, you heard this message that He is the Saviour and then your hearts were humbled and you believed in Him, you believed in Him, apostle Paul is clear about this in writing to the Romans, again in what is really a classic passage for those of us who have any idea at all in Romans 10 he says, how then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed, well they won't and how are they to believe in Him of whom they've never heard and how are they doing here well, I was someone preaching, see the pattern, there is the proclamation of the word of truth which is the gospel, there is the hearing of it, and then there's the believing in it, he's just saying I remember of closing of services sometimes when I was tiny in Scotland, a song just and it came to mind when I when I was thinking of that verb call, how can they call on him of whom they have not heard, the idea of calling on him like blind Bartimaeus, Jesus Son of David have mercy on me, and the hymn writer had that refrain, past me not o gentle Savior, hear my humble cry, while on others thou art calling, do not pass me by, they see, that's the entry into an experience of the reality of Christ, it's not Christ does not come to cater to our intellectual arrogance but he does come to deal with our intellectual integrity, there's a difference you will never believe in Christ from a position of passive objectivity, it is when the Word of God is preached, and it is understood, and it is believed, and it comes across that you will be as they were thirdly and finally sealed with the promised Holy Spirit the work of the Father to plan this, the work of the Son to procure this, the work of the Spirit to apply it, the sealing of the Holy Spirit, He's promised that this would be the case simply a mark of ownership whether it is the signet ring of the king or whether it is a brand on a beast in the field to identify it as belonging to and he says and when you heard this truth and you believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit this is not some strange and esoteric post-conversion experience, this is directly retired to what it means to be in Christ, in the book of Romans and in Chapter 8, apostle Paul addresses this and he says, you however are not in the flesh but in the spirit if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you and anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to HIM , anyone who doesn't have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to HIM, in other words there is no spiritual life, absence the indwelling power of God by the Holy Spirit, we say well, what about it, well let's go back down the line, you heard, you believed, you were sealed, well how will I know, well you'll have to do Romans 8 on your own, we don't have time, but there are two ways in which it is obvious and immediately apparent, and that is that when you are indwelled by the Spirit of God, revealing that you belong to God, you'll be led by the Spirit of God, you'll be led by the Spirit of God, where are you going, I don't know, what are you doing with your life, I don't know, wait, what are your dreams and hopes and long high, I don't know, the Christian says, well, I'm actually seriously thinking about what God has for me, what it means now that I am in Christ, to be a mom to my children, in fact, I've been surprised are the thoughts that I've had, and the way the Bible has started to impinge upon me in a way that I had never known before, what is happening there, it is the Spirit of God leading, leading you further down, He says you didn't receive a spirit of slavery so that you would fall into fear, but you received the spirit of adoption as sons, so that you would cry Abba Father, so when the Spirit of God seals the life of a child of God, there is the leading of God's Spirit and there is also the praying, there is the communing, if you like, God is no longer the God who didn't care, who lived the way up there, as we used to sing in the sixties, but now He's the Father to me, and again my experience of Abba Father, my Abba Father's are few and far between, and actually they're not in moments of great bursts of enthusiasm and joy, my Abba's moments have been when like there's no way out of this box, when there is no answer to this prayer, when it appears as though I have deviated so badly from course that there is no possibility of getting back on track and it is then you see that it is ABBA, it's Abba Father like He tends and spares us, well, our feeble frame He knows, He leads us, do I slip? yes, do i stumble? yes, do I deviate? yes, but the work which is grace, He begins, He completes, and it's often painful but it's always purposeful, don't miss it, and you will notice, and with this we will stop that the Holy Spirit is actually the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, well, there's always more to come, apostle Peter says we have an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, and it's kept in heaven for you, well, there's a portfolio, isn't it? I mean you right there right there stock market through the month of January we're almost finished now you know great Aunt Mabel promised you a wonderful painting but before she could get it to you at all, there was some child stood on the glass and smashed it and tore it up and it's just is worthless, there's no chance of it yielding you any cash at all, it's defiled, its perished, it's faded, not this, not this, I don't know what that'lI be like, I can't imagine but I remember when I came here in the early days and I've told you this before I had never heard the phrase we'll call I didn't know if there was one word or two words or whatever it really was I didn't even know what it was I had no idea for somebody told me when they said if you go to will call I said l'd said it to myself I said we'll call it wonder wonder what that means local so I just said it you know I went into place and I said I'm supposed to go to we'll call even now when I say it doesn't sound right but anyway see not it will call what do you do you got a woke always say Alistair beg and unless the persons mean spoofing you what they promised you is there you're gonna stand up on that day you go to will call give them your name the inheritance is being kept for you why? because you're so good? no, because Jesus is so good, why? because you have perfectly obeyed? no, because Jesus perfectly obeyed, why? because you've made atonement for your sins? no, because He made atonement for your sins, you see, this is the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, which has you believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit, and as a result of this, it was to is in the purposes of God, so that everybody will know how great God is, starts with God and it ends with God, and He doesn't share it with anybody, doesn't share it with good preachers, doesn't share it with good congregations, one of the great risks for us as a congregation is we talk about ourselves too much, it's always a harrowing thing, but it's a helpful thing, when somebody said to me just yesterday, and so what do you do? I say well, I'm part of a pastoral team, oh really? what church is that as Parkside Church, blank stare, never heard of it, oh okay, now I feel a little offended, I want to explain, old have you heard of the radio, what radio? oh yeah it says uh if you ever heard of Jesus? that's really the question, isn't you see, you get to this stage, but I'm scared to go back in this auditorium, it's so nice through there, but who really cares, I mean this is okay, as well, isn't it? it's fine, see don't say that would you spend a fortune through there but no but a fight of the matter is we can get really good about telling people about part of a church renovation and not telling people about Jesus, it's to the praise of His glory that He's done this, so that we might be much of Him , well we must stop now,
🙏🏽 Father , thank you for the Bible, thank you that the more we study it, the more we realize the wonder of it,
