Latest / Grace Primitive Baptist Church - Houston, TX / Elder Mike Montgomery and Elder Mike Moseley | Primitive Baptist Association 2026 - Sunday Morning 08/02/2026

Transcript

Elder Mike Montgomery and Elder Mike Moseley | Primitive Baptist Association 2026 - Sunday Morning 08/02/2026 · Grace Primitive Baptist Church - Houston, TX

• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a great and glorious weekend.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to thank not just the members of Grace, but all of you for your prayers, not just for the ministry, but for one another, for the fellowship, which is so special, and for the hospitality and to the Grace Church.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: You did a great job.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: I commend you in the Lord.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: As you can tell from my voice, I have a little bit of an allergy issue going on.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sister Ann did really good.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: She helped me out last night.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: I slept good.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: I dried up, and then it decided right at the last 15 minutes, I'm gonna make a return, you know.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so God is able to overcome our voice.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: And if my voice gets crackly, I pray it's not a distraction from whatever of the truth that I'm blessed to proclaim to you today.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I want to turn to a verse of scripture found in Galatians chapter 2.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's a verse that Brother Philip dealt with, but that wasn't his primary text.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think if I was to categorize it, it would have been Galatians 2.16.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: But 2.20 is where I want to start, God being my helper.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then I want to proceed to Ephesians and look at some things there.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: And these verses that I have on my mind are connected in the phrase, we're in the word union.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: We're united with Christ.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: And there is something I have found to be so special about that concept, to be to know that we are united with Christ.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to be united with Christ?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: How do we become united with Christ?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: What does it entail for us today that we are united with Christ?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's four levels to that, or four aspects, maybe I should put it like that.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's not four separate unions.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: But each looks at that union from a different perspective.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the first one would be eternal union.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll have to go to uh Ephesians to prove that one, but keep that in mind.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: The next one is representative union or legal union.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that happened on the cross.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: We'll have to uh we can say right here in Galatians for that one, but there's some good places in Ephesians to go to as well.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: The third one is what we call vital union.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Another way of putting that, that's when you're born again, when you're regenerated.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Eternal union said it's the basis.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh legal union is the accomplishment, vital union is the application.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: But there's a fourth one that deals with you and me in particular.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's this last one, this fourth one, is based upon the other three.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: You see, the other three, we are entirely passive in.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't do anything to get united with Christ.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't do anything to get Christ to die for us.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't do anything to get Christ to born us again.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't cooperate with him, we didn't help him.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: We are totally passive in that work.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: But the fourth one, you are to be very active in the doing thereof.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: But let's not ever confuse the fourth one with one of the first three.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's different ways to call the fourth one.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's no particular phrase set out in God's Word to say it like this, but one of the words that comes to mind is participation.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: We participate in Christ.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Another one would be communion.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Common union.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: That is very definitely taught in God's Word.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: We practice a service called communion.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it means we together partake of the body of Christ in a figurative way, that is.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And in the participating in that service, a blessing comes forth that would not come otherwise.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Another way to put it is experimental union.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: And notice I didn't say experiential.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to go with my fathers of the ministry on this one.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: They use the word experimental.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: And if that bothers you, I'm sorry.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: But uh experiential may be the more accurate term.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: But my fathers of the ministry, they call it experimental union.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to stick with that, Brother Travis.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to call it experimental union.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: But it's an arbitrary way of saying when you are blessed to know who Jesus is and what he's done for you, then you are to take up your cross and follow him, starting with baptism and then taking your place in the church.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And in so doing, you bring glory and honor to your Lord who died for you.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: But you also bring something else, not just for you, but it does include something for you.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: You do something else.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: More importantly, you bless other people.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: And that is the true mark of Christ.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Not that you love indiscriminately.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not that loving God is lesser, it's just that this you prove your love for God by showing love to your brothers and sisters in Christ.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: The Apostle Paul has a unique way of describing things, unique to him.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the oft-quoted ways, often seen ways that he does it, is with the preposition, that little two-letter word in.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: In Christ.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: In him, in whom, in the Lord.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you find it all throughout the Apostle Paul's letters.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: The one that right now comes to my mind is Romans 8 and 1.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: There is there now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: May I say that that's a great place to be.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's the best place to be.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: In, as the word, as we use the word, means location or place.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to mean an actual geographic place, it can mean a place of or sphere of influence.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: But in Christ, it means that you are united with him.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Brother James Conley quoted from 1 Corinthians 1 and 18 yesterday when he said, But of him are ye in Christ.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that right there explains how you get in Christ.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go to Galatians 2.20.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Brother Mike doesn't want me to leave him any time.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: He's made that pretty clear.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I would be remiss if I did not give him plenty of time to speak to us and share with us those things the Lord has put on his heart.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: We said Galatians 2.20, and Galatians 2.20 is in the midst of Paul's speech to the apostle Peter.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: Don't have time to get into the particulars of it, but he's talking to the Galatians by telling them what he told Peter.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I found that way of looking at this section of Galatians very helpful to remember that what we're reading is it's universal to all of God's people, to the church in all ages, but it's based on a confrontation that Paul had with Peter.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that confrontation happened in the church at Antioch.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: And Paul's using this to talk to the church at Galatia.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the Holy Ghost is using it to talk to the church today.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: So the speech really begins around 214, 2.15, and then it lays out the great doctrine of justification by the faith of Jesus Christ, where the Philip preached about that.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: And that one verse is to Galatians, like Romans 1.16, 17 is to Romans.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to get the thesis statement of the letter that Paul wrote to the Galatians, it's Galatians 2.16.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then for the rest of the second chapter, he he supports and defends what he just said in the 16th verse.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: And 2.20 being the next to the last verse is really a summation.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's really the conclusion.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's the conclusion statement of the speech of Paul to Peter.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you're not familiar with Galatians 2.20, you really should.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: You owe it to yourself to do that.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's the most personal statement that the Apostle Paul will make in any of his letters.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Even more personal than Romans 7, and that's saying a lot.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: This is Paul not talking about me in a rhetorical sense.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: He's talking about me in the actual sense.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: He's talking about himself.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is the Paul's heart laid out in front of everybody.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: It ought to be our heart, too.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: But we have to, to get to that point, we need to, in prayer and meditation, look at Paul's words and try to see them for what they are.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And try not to read things into it that are not there and try to read out of it what is in there to be read out of it.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to quote it to you.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: I know you got your Bibles open.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I'm an old-fashioned preacher.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: If it helps you to read along with me, then fine.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I much rather prefer you listen to me.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Does that hurt anybody's feelings?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, I don't hurt anybody's feelings.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't mean it for that way.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm thankful everybody brings their Bibles.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when I was a young lad, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: When you brought a Bible to church, the old brethren would come to you and says, What do you think you can preach today?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm 12 years old.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I didn't want anybody to catch me with the Bible.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want anybody thinking I was thinking that I was called to preach.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad those days are behind us.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad it's great that people bring their Bibles.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's great that husbands sit with their wives.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: All my adult life I've had to sit on the front row, not because I wanted it, well, kind of did want it.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a long-legged person, and it's not a lot nicer to sit on the front row.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I, this is a terrible say, too.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: But you have less distractions on the first row.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just leave it at that.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: I am crucified with Christ.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this verse 20 has to be understood in light of the verse that preceded it.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll talk about that in just a second, but let me just finish reading the verse.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: I am crucified with Christ.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Nevertheless, I live.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: This is the heart of the apostle.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he meant every word that I just read.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: And he means it to impact the Galatians.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the Holy Ghost means for us to be impacted likewise.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: So when he says me, he means me, Paul.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: I, he means I, Paul.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: He's not talking about an us or a we, he's talking about an I and a me.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: And we may say, isn't that rather selfish?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: I say, no.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, I'd say, until you can get to the we and the us, you've got to deal with the I and the me first.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to see the I and the me in Christ.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that means seeing things that are good to see that you don't want to see, but you must see.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you must see those things before you can see the glorious things.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, the apostle Paul says, I am crucified with Christ.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you a question.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Was Paul there when Christ actually was crucified?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: No, he wouldn't.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Of course he wouldn't.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't mean I was co-crucified with Christ.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: And he's not saying I fell in love with Christ, so I crucified myself.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: He's not even saying that.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: He's not saying I wanted to, so I did.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's not it.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: He's saying a fact, an established fact.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: I am crucified with Christ.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Christ didn't have all of his people present on the cross with him, visibly, actually, but representationally he did.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: That Paul came to understand that he was one of those people that Christ died for.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what it means to begin with: that I am crucified with Christ.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: You come to the realization that what the Son of God did for you, did for you, he did it for you on the cross, and what he did for you did something for you that nothing else would have done.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: I am crucified with Christ.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: And he makes it, he then he throws the curveball.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Nevertheless, I live.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what is it, Paul?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Did you die with Christ?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Or do you live?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: And my answer to that is yes, to both.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: He died when Christ died.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: You did too.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you belong to Christ, and you need to see this, you died with Christ when he died.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because he represented you on the cross.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: That representation is only there because God purposed it before the world began.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: And he purposed it so that the people that he chose in Christ would be atoned for and be able to stand before him in love, especially in the great day of days when he comes back to take his home to glory.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: We see right off the bat, Paul is talking about representational union.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: I am crucified with Christ.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: That preposition with means not just, uh it means not alongside with, but a part of.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Do you believe that he was crucified for you?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because you deserve to be crucified.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: That he must pay the penalty for your sins.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: I say that at our communion service.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: I say, when you take the bread, you know what you're saying?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: You're saying I'm responsible for Christ's body being torn like it was, for the immense pain and agony that he endured for me, and as some brothers said, He did it for me, even if I was the only me that there was.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: He suffered untold agony.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: He told those two men on the road to Maeus, ought not Christ to have suffered.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: He had to go through the valley of the shadow of death.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: He went to death, and he was for a while buried within the tomb, but death could not hold him.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: And because it could not hold him, it will not hold us.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: Amen.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's the glory of being united with Christ.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we died with him.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: That has a doctrinal and a practical aspect.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to see the doctrine of it.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to see the teaching of it.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: And when you see the teaching of it, you come to this realization.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like Paul said to the Romans in the sixth chapter of Romans, he says, likewise reckon ye yourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto Christ.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that it's actually now true that we are in a sin-free environment, our bodies are free of sin, but we ought to reckon that what Christ did is such that we can live a way that otherwise we couldn't.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I've felt this for the longest time is that if we are going to heaven, and I believe we are, then we ought to live like we're in heaven right now.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: We ought to treat one another like we're all in heaven.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because Christ has done for us the most wonderful thing.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: He's made us meet to be with him in glory one of these days.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I know we have to be glorified in the resurrection, but you get the point, I trust.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Nevertheless I live, yet not I.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now, here's the other part of this living.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: In that he sees himself crucified with Christ, and yet he lives, he realizes that the life that he has is not his life, it's the life of Christ in him.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Christ was raised from the dead to walk in newness of life.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: He has that newness of life where he is right now at the right hand of God.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we are privileged to walk in newness of life because we have his life in us.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because he has his life in us, as Paul says to the to the Romans of 8 chapter, Romans, if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also raise up your bodies too.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't put that exactly perfect, but uh you get the point.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: The thing that's in you right now, if you have the life of Christ in you right now, you have the power of the resurrection in you right now.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Just think about that.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: That ought to change our perspective on so many things.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: And we just remember that although we are in bodies that are crumbling as I speak, he says, yet the inner man is renewed day by day.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: That inner man is the life of Christ in us, in you and in me.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then he says, uh, I live in the life I live, this life of Christ that I live presently, now, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Those two things epitomize what the faith of Christ is all about.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: It is the love and the self-sacrificing of himself for those that he loved.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: In this verse, we see uh we see explicitly stated legal or representational union.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: We see vital union.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: We even see participation in that he mentions that we are to live the life of faith with the life of Christ within us.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: What is implied, what is underneath it all, is eternal union.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because Christ wasn't named, who wasn't unified or did not unite to him people that he didn't already know.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: And when did he come to know them?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Before the world began.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now I turn to Ephesians chapter 1.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And we begin to look at the beginning of the letter, and we want to get to the fourth verse, but I'll start with the third verse to get there.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: You talk about a union.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just in Christ, it's in heavenly places in Christ.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: It should be enough that we're in Christ.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: But we're in heavenly places in Christ.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: These heavenly places are in Christ.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: And guess who else is in Christ?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: You are.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: I am.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: We belong to Christ.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: He has us in himself.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: The spiritual blessings, I want you to think of them in two ways.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's two kinds of blessings, if I may put it like this, that are in Christ.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that comprehends all spiritual blessings, whatever they are, they're in one of two categories.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: There are the promises that are yours without condition.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to read about some of those.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: I won't read them all, but you can start in the fourth verse and read down through most of the first chapter, and you can see a lot of things that we have in Christ, blessings that are in Christ that we had nothing to do with, that were totally passive in.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not to say there aren't other blessings, and these are conditional.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: They're in Christ, where you are in Christ.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: But for you to participate in them, you must follow, thus saith the Lord.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: You must obey the commands of Christ.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: You must love one another as you love the Lord.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you may or you may not do that.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: I can speak from my own experience.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: If indeed I am a child of God, I can prove, as a matter of fact, that I have acted in such a way that I've given up certain blessings.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the shame on me because I have the capacity to do those things that I've been called, because God worketh in us both to will and to do his good pleasure.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: So the first thing that we want to say is found in the fourth verse.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: And this really we'll say this, and then we're going to jump to the second chapter.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: He says, according as he hath chosen us in him, there's your eternal union right there.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: According as he hath chosen us in him, why do I know it's eternal?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because it started before time began.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: This choice was before time began.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, according as he hath chosen us in him.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: Paul's saying, me and you.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's not his point at all.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: No, anything, any kind of salvation where you have to do something, it's not eternal salvation.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Just take that as a rule.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's in the book.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Anything mentioned that sounds like salvation that says you have to do something to get it, it's time salvation.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: This is not time salvation.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: This is eternal.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: According as he had chosen us and him before the foundation of the world, before the world began, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: You read on down, I challenge any of you young people here, look through that first chapter and count the many times the preposition in is used.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then see how many times that preposition is used in connection with him or in whom or in Christ.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: The vast majority of them are about being in Christ or experiencing or participating in a blessing.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: In these passively, uh, thank goodness it's not up to us.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's all done by the power of God.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: But we have a sense as we move through that first chapter.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to say anything more about the first chapter.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to read anything else out of the first chapter.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'll leave that to you.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because that we'd spend all the time.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: We'd spend the rest of our lives talking about that.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just telling you, the first blessing, the first in him, in Christ, is the fourth verse.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: And now I you can say, what about the third verse?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: You said all heavenly blessings in Christ.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the fourth verse is very directed, very specific.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: You wonder why would Paul even write about this?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm glad he did, aren't you?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: I I hope if you're not glad about it now, that you'll meditate on it and you'll see the beauty and the power of it.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: But think about who he's writing to.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: He's writing to people who what we would call like us Gentiles, not Jews.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: They had no uh covenant link to God going back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: They had none of those promises to them.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: But so how how can they not be inferior to that group of people?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Paul makes it pretty plain.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: There is no such thing as inferiority.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: We're all in Christ.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: And in Christ there's neither male nor female, bond or free, Jew nor Gentile.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: He says about a new creature.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: To us today, we have a pedigree that is the finest, highest pedigree that you can imagine.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not because we we uh failed to be descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: No, we have the same pedigree as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: We belong to Christ because we were chosen in him before the foundation of the world.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's eternal union.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now I want to go to the second chapter and look at something here.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Time is it is the enemy.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: We start with the first verse, and uh it says, and you have to quicken.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: You were dead in trespasses and in sins.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: That word quicken is not in the Greek.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: But the context is all about quickening.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about being born again.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Why do I say that?
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because you were, he said you were dead.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: You walked a certain way that you don't walk anymore.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: What changed?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was you were born again.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: You were quickened.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't mean you stopped sinning.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm saying your whole life was redirected, refocused.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Quickening is divine life, giving, the giving of divine life.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what we call vital union.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I want you to see the power of how the apostle Paul was blessed to write this.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then you know the first three verses is all about what we were.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: We were this way.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a it was a bad thing that he describes.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to see it, you have to own it before you can own this other thing that's more blessed.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: You are you were quickened, not that you asked for it.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: No, you were dead in trespasses and in sins.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: The dead don't know anything.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: The dead don't want anything.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: They don't want anything from God.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but when God quickens you, whether you ever come to the truth or whether you ever join the church, you are changed forever.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: You have something in you that is pure as Christ is pure.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: You have something in you that is the life of Christ.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: It is eternal life.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: You you're not waiting to get eternal life.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: You already have eternal life, that is, in your soul and spirit, because Christ has born you again.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: He's regenerated you.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: You go to Titus 3.5 and John 3.3 and John 3.5, uh, very sundry places, uh, John 1.12 and 13, and you can find where the inspired writers make it clear.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: God does this to you without asking for your permission.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: And thank God He does.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Vital union is what gives you the spirit, and it gives you the capability.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: Notice I use the word capability.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: It means the capacity for doing something is there.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Whether or not the capacity is utilized, that's another question.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: But you have that within you to do that which is pleasing in God's sight, and you'll want to do it, though sometimes you feel like you don't, because you have something in you, a living, breathing spirit of Christ in you, that bears witness with your spirit.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: That Holy Spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity, he takes up his abode in your heart, and he sits upon the throne of your heart, and he never leaves.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: God doesn't give you the spirit one day and take it away the next.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: He's not that way.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: He gives that life and he gives it to the people that Christ died for.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: So on that basis, I can say from the dawn of time, uh, for however long God's people, God's elect have existed upon this earth, every single one of them has been born again.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that they were born again at the age of two or twelve or 120.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: I can say that John the Baptist was born again in his mother's womb.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: How do I know that?
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because the Bible says he leaped for joy at the salutation of Mary as she was uh carrying the baby, unborn baby Jesus.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: John did something that can only be accounted for by being born again.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: In his heart, in his little infant heart, in his unborn body, infant heart, leap for joy.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: But did he know why he was leaping for joy?
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that we could we can argue the point, I suppose, but he was a baby.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't intellectually know, but his heart, his soul knew.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: It could be the last breath you breathe.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: God's never too late, he's never too early.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's no circumstance that's too great for him to do his will because he said, he's promised this.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is part of the covenant of grace, and the covenant of grace was made not with you and me.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: We're the recipients of it.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: We're included in it as the recipients.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: But the ones who agreed to it, the ones that said, I'll do this, and the other one said, I'll do this, and the other one said, I'll do this, that is God, the triumph.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: Each of the persons of the Godhead have a role in our salvation.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it started before the world began.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Vital union comes to all, whether you join the church or not, whether a babe dies in infancy or like the thief on the cross just before he dies.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: You don't hear Christ saying a single word to the thief when that man changes from cursing the Lord to blessing the Lord, to defending the Lord.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: What changed?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: Was he baptized?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what changed?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: No, he wasn't baptized.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: Was it because he heard the gospel preached?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if he did, it was because Christ spoke to his heart.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: God, and here's Christ at his weakest ebb on the cross.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he quickens who at the time is acting like one of his worst enemies.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: But vital union is dependent upon legal union, representational union.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: And there is another kind of quickening.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that you're born again two different ways.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: You're only born again one way, but there is a quickening that happened for all of us at the same time, together in Christ.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll read about that now.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: We go down to the fifth verse, and he says, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: For by grace ye are saved.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: What are we to make of this verse?
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, again, we see that word with.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's that word with again, isn't it?
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: I am crucified with Christ.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: And here in Ephesians he says, quicken us together with Christ.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that word quickened means to be made alive.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: But the word quicken is not always used in the sense of regeneration.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: It in this sense is used in the sense of Christ's resurrection.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: We've died in Christ when he died.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: We were buried when Christ was buried.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: We were raised again when he was raised again.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Not as if we were personally there, although I think a case could be made that Christ died for persons that he knows.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: But the point is, all of us together, you know what that sounds like?
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: What Paul says, we together became improvitable?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is the opposite of that.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is when we together became profitable in Christ.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: We were brought to life in Christ.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: And because that we were brought to life in Christ, we get the life of Christ when we're born again.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason why he died for us is because he agreed to do so in the covenant of grace before the foundation of the world.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: In eternal union.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, eternal union, legal union, or representational union, vital union.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so much more could be said.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: May I just say the tenth verse of the second chapter, it completes the circuit began in the first verse of the second chapter.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: That verse, the tenth verse, if I understand anything, is talking about regeneration.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: But in that circle, he's talking about the basis for that quickening of vital union is based upon the fact that we were quickened together with Christ.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: And look at all the other with Christ things that we have in those verses, starting with the fifth verse.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I won't read them, I'll let you read them.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe Brother Mike will feel inspired to talk about it.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: I need to go to the last thing and bring my remarks too close.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Ephesians is so expertly put together.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot about our position in Christ.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: We're in Christ from a covenant standpoint, we're in Christ from a legal standpoint, we're in Christ from a vital standpoint.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then starting with the end of the third chapter, and for the rest of the book, he talks about participation.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we can do this because we're in Christ.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: Look what he says in the last verse of the third chapter.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then from there on he proves what he means by that.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: The church can be seen one of two ways, and I'm I'm I can see both the church in the greater mystical sense, and then the local church, or the ideal church.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think the church, the gospel church, is a big part of what it means to participate in Christ.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: Experimental union, if I may uh say it like that.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: And here's what he says: I therefore the prisoner of the Lord.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: You can already see.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: Here's how here's Paul saying, here's my participation.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: Here's how I get about things.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the prisoner of the Lord.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: What about you?
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't sound like much of a thing you'd want to participate in, does it?
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: But Paul says it's his life.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: He says it really well in Philippians.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I won't go there.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: I won't chase that rabbit.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: We'll just continue on.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: He says, I beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: How is it that you can walk worthy?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: What is this vocation?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: He's going to explain that.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: But may I say, he's already told us why we can walk worthy.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: He's already told us that we have the capacity to do it.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: And now he's proving that we can do it if we know what it is to do.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: What should we do in order to walk worthy of our vocation?
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: We all have a vocation.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: Even us retired people, brother.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: Brother Travis, we have a vocation.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's not something you retire from.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's a glorious vocation.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: It is a wonderful profession in confession.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's a wonderful business to be involved in.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I hesitate to use the word business, but I'm trying to derive from this the idea of activity, motion, moving forward, not backwards, not even sideways.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: Although there's a horizontal and vertical to this.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: But the point is, we together as the body of Christ have great things to do.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the more we're about doing those things, the more it redounds to the glory of God, and the more it redounds to our edification, and especially to that of the church.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: My father's talked about something called the cause of Christ.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, brethren, you know what I'm talking about.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: The cause of Christ.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: What is the cause of Christ?
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you, at least what it means this, is that we extol the name of Jesus Christ in spirit and in truth.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: We try to walk humbly and spiritually before others, proclaiming the glorious truth of salvation by grace, and grace alone.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: What a glorious thing to proclaim, to have that wonderful knowledge.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: And not all of God's people who are united with Him eternally, legally or finally have this knowledge.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: But those of you who do, you are permitted, you're blessed to participate with others who also have this knowledge.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: And the whole is greater than the sum of parts.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I say you can't have by yourself what you have in the church of Jesus Christ.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's greater than us individually.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: When we are one, you're the bride of Christ.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: We're the church, we're the body of the Lord.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: And in that sense, he goes into this fourth chapter, doesn't he?
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: He talks about God giving gifts unto men.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: For the perfecting of the saints, for the joining together of one another.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's not easy to be joined together unless you're doing it exactly as the Lord said.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: But when you are put together as Christ has laid out through his apostles in the Word of God, there is a strength that comes that would not come any other way.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now, let me let me continue on.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: My wife says, when I say in closing, she said, you got five minutes, Mike.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: And if you go five minutes and one second, you're a blind.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: God's people you ought to be ashamed of yourself.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been ashamed of myself far too often, Mike.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't think I've technically said in closing, although I just said it.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: So let me get busy.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: He says this.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: If you have heard, you notice that he said, if you have heard, how many people of God haven't heard?
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: He's not saying the hearing of the spirit of regeneration, or about you know that God exists.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: He's talking about the gospel hearing.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: If you have heard, have you heard?
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: You might not have.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you you're right here listening to me and you're really not listening.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe your thoughts are elsewhere.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: Are you listening?
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: Are you paying attention?
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: Are you doing like Lydia did when the Lord opened her heart?
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you receive the things of the Spirit and the preaching of the gospel.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: Are you listening?
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you, it's worth listening to.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: Even though I've got the terrible voice that I do, even though I'm not really preaching any good.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: What God is telling you that you're preaching is worth listening to.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: If ye have heard, uh with all, well I wanted to, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you've been called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: There is one body and one spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: I almost stopped right there.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of uses of the word in.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: Did you notice that?
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: Was there ever a mention of in Christ?
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: Not actually.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Or I should say not explicitly.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, it's all about him.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: Let's look at some of these in words.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: He says, and help me make, he says in the second verse, in love.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: In the third verse, he says, in the bond of peace.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: In the fourth verse, he says, in one hope of your calling.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: What I've just said in those end statements is what it means to participate in Christ.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: Which one of those things is unworthy of your devotion?
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: Which of these four things is unworthy of your attempt to do what God has given you to do?
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you haven't joined the church, what's holding you back?
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: If you're holding on to the bench like that, white knuckle Baptist.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to join the church, just say so right now and I'll stop preaching.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: You should join the church.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not begging anybody to join the church.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm certainly not begging anybody to come down to a mourner's bench.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have a mourner's bench here.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not asking anybody to make a decision for Christ or accept Christ.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: That would be a shame for me to say, especially after Paul said in the first verse, wherein we are made accepted in the blood.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: You want to talk about being accepted or the word accepted?
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about the real acceptation, the one that matters.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: Christ, God accepting us in Christ.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: If he's accepted us in Christ, our acceptance of him ought to just flow.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: If you understand what that means, you should shout for glory and take up your cross and follow the Lord because He's man.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: Join the church.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: It would be the best thing you could do on this side of glory.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: He says forbearing one another in love.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: I tell you, the church ought to be all about that in love.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is God's house.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: This is Christ's house.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: And Christ gave us a new commandment that we should love one another, even as he had loved us.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: That means to put the needs of others in the church above your own.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: I say this.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then those boy creatures I got there.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then those uh wonderful deacons you can formula, those wonderful deacons that we got, there's one of them back there.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: With all those wonderful young folks we have.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: In love.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: But the old flesh ain't what it is.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I gotta get it out of the side.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: Endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: We gotta try that.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: We are all human beings, and we're all gonna get our feelings hurt, our noses and out of joy.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: We just gotta keep the pun out of joy.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to work at that.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, good for us.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: We got Matthew 18.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know what would be even better?
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think the Lord would say I agree with this.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: What's even better is just go ahead and forgive.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: Just forgive.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: Don't hold the crush.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: Stop that if you are.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you think you can't, think again, you can.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: To say you can't is to go against that which God has put within you.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: More to be said.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: There is one body and one spirit, even as you're called in one hope.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's not many hopes, there's just one hope.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that's worked in us as Christ and is the Holy Ghost.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: And we share that together.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: And when we are in the process of sharing that one hope, and as he says, you're called in one hope of your calling, every one of us has been called effectually.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: I can say that.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: Every one of us has been born in the Spirit.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't be here if you weren't.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe somebody came along for the food, I don't know, but uh the food's been great.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: But the real reason is you've got the Spirit of Christ within you.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now there's another call, it's the gospel call.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: Don't confuse the two.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: But the gospel call is in sync with the effectual call.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the gospel call is in its own way effectual.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: Paul said it was to the Galatians.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: It does what it's intended to do when it does what it's intended to do.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's very effectual.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that gospel has a common goal and purpose is to point us to Christ, who is our one hope.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I thank you for attentive and listening.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: Give it over to our dearly beloved brother Mike.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: And may the Lord bless him.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: So appreciate what Brother Mike's brought forth.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: Such wonderful doctrinal uh principles to remember and those different aspects of a union with Christ.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, certainly it all hinges on that eternal union that He wrought within the Godhead alone when there was no one else but God, there was no thing else but God.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: God was not one of many, he was self-existing, but he had a love for you, for his people.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: Before the world began, he knew you, he loved you, and he did all that was necessary that you would be before him in love.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what the end result of God's love and desire was, according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we weren't there, you didn't have an existence, a real existence before the world began, but you were in the mind and purpose, and if you'll allow me to say the heart, the love of God, um which is his essence.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just something God has, it's what God is.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: God is love.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you were in that purpose of his, and he did all that was necessary.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so you were united with Christ eternally.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: That legal representative union that he showed us from Scripture happened when being in Christ, he came and when he died, you died.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: When he rose, you rose.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that vital union, which is when he actually comes to your real person, your your natural life.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now remember, didn't have an existence before a natural existence.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: There is a um teaching out there that says there we were spirits before and sent to a body.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: No, my friends, we were natural first, then spiritual.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: Adam, Adam is the first man, and we were in Adam, and we came from Adam, and then the second man, Adam, which means Christ, the representative of his of men.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's only two men named Adam.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking about like my friend named Adam, I'm talking about what the name means.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: The word means man.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's kind of interesting if you go read what what does the Hebrew mean for Adam?
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: It means man.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: What is the word man in Hebrew?
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's Adam.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why he was named Adam.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the second man, Adam, when you read that about Christ, that means he represented men.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_00: He represented the men, the men and women and children, the human beings that were in him before the foundation of the world that we already heard about.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: That um that representation means you were natural, then you were spiritual because that's why you're born again.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to Nicodemus, you must be born again.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Brother Mike talked about, vital union or regeneration.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: The new birth is another way God describes it to us.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's born again because it is second in chronological order.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: No one was born again before they were conceived naturally.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist was born again before he was what we call naturally born because it was in the mother's womb.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it was, he was a human being conceived in the womb naturally speaking.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: Then he was born again.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: But the Greek word for born again is actually directional.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: It says from above.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a spiritual birth, it's a birth of God, it's how you're united vitally with the one you're united legally and eternally.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: But this idea of participation is I'm so glad you you brought that up.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: So what's on my mind, and I'll try to spend just a few minutes in it, in Ephesians chapter one and two, and again, yes, brother Mike, it's too hard to uh get there's so much.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: But let's go back to uh chapter two of Ephesians in the first verse, and then just go a little bit above that because there were no chapters when he wrote it to the church.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: It flows right on through.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh before and you, and it starts with the word and how can you start in chapter 2, verse 1 when it starts with the word and what's it and connected to?
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's connected to the power that God, the exceeding greatness of his power, according to the working of his mighty power in chapter 1, verse 19, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, And you hath the quickened who were dead.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then Brother Mike showed us where he says, and we were quickened together with Christ and made to sit together with Christ in the heavenly places.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where it's all tied together.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: But notice what else he did.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: He raised Christ, set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 21, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: What a doxology of that.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: What a praise to the name of Jesus Christ.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's how high and exalted Jesus Christ was set by the because of his finished work that he brought on the cross.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_00: And God accepted that work, and that's why he raised him from the dead.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that is why we are raised up with him as well.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: But then he says this, verse 22, and, which means in addition to raising Christ up, sitting him on the throne, uh far above every single thing that could possibly be mentioned in this world and that to come, but and hath put all things under his feet.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: And gave him, gave Christ to be the head over all things to the church.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that tells us that Christ is still active in his headship and ruling over the church.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now it says this, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: The church, it says, which is his body.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: He's the head and it's the body.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's a oneness to that.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: My head and my body are connected.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_00: If they're not connected, my body's going to be dead.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: The church without the head is dead.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_00: The church cannot be the church without the head.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_00: But what is the church?
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Brother Mike mentioned there's this idea of a mystical church, or some would like to say the triumphant church.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you, someday there will absolutely be, and without fail, one body, one church, and it will involve every single individual that is that was eternally united with Christ before the world began, every single individual that was legally represented and united with Christ on the cross, every single one of those which were will be vitally united with Christ in regeneration.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: It will include every single one without fail.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: The body, he will not be missing a bone.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was prophesied that not a bone of him will be broken.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a picture of the fact that he said, I can tell on my bones.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_00: I can count them one by one because he knows every one of his children.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_00: He knows everyone for all time.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: He knew them before the world began.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: He loved them and he died for them, and he comes to everyone and says, Live.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: They will be united in one body in heaven someday.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: When he comes to take his own home, when he comes again and comes to redeem from the grave his children, and those that are alive and remain.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: It says, We'll be caught up together and meet him in the air.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so shall we ever be with the Lord.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be called up, called out and assembled, and we'll be in heaven forevermore.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: The word church means the called out assembly.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's ecclesia.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the word means.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it means it was used to say things like when you would call people to come out of their home to assemble in a public place.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it wasn't religious, but I promise you, here it's about Christ.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking about your called out, not just called.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly, it begins with being called from death unto life.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_00: But he's also calling those that are alive and those that are his to come out of the world and to assemble as the body of Christ.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: He's the head of it, and he wants you where he is.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, in the midst of the church, will I sing praise in unto my Father?
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're to come out and assemble.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is not just figurative language.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of metaphor in it, but there, but it doesn't make it figurative language.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot be the church not assembled.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can be part of the church, you have a home in the church, you always represent the church.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're an ambassador of Christ in all cases.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_00: But if we never assemble, what right have we definitionally to say we're the called out and assembled?
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now we can't stay assembled.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that I would, I would that you were always here all the time.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_00: But you all have your own homes to go and be the church in.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_00: I love to remember this when we or think of this, and I hope we all view it this way: that here right now, today, while we're at a meeting hosted by Grace Church, and this is an association of churches, which means there's multiple church bodies that have come together and assembled.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: And when we do that, and there's visitors here, and Brother Mike's from Old School Vernon Baptist Church, and that's his church, the body that he belongs to, and he presses into and he preaches to.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_00: But when we gather, and at the time we start to sing and worship, at that time, I like to forget the names of the individual bodies and say, right now we are called out and assembled to be the church of Christ.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's the participation that he's talking about, and the way we participate in the union we have with Christ is to be his body, to come out and assemble and to give all praise to the one who is above all things, because God gave him to be the head over the church.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we move forward, and we see that not only is he quickened you each individually, but he did something beautiful with his death on the cross.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_00: He bought your access.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_00: And not just um, so I mean what I mean is he he's talking here to the Ephesians who were Gentiles, saying that you he bought access to his body.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're no longer strangers and foreigners because they were.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was the Jews had all the oracles of God, the Jews had the right to assemble, the Jews only had the right to come in to a place called a temple and to worship God in a way that pleased God, the way God said to do so.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: But Paul says, No, you also are able to come and worship.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_00: In verse 13 of chapter 2, or actually go back in verse 11, wherefore remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, and I don't want to read all of this, but he's in that you were without Christ, you were aliens to the commonwealth of Israel, you were strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, Gentiles, you were like that.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that, but don't stay there because that's not where you are now.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_00: He says, But now in Christ Jesus, in Christ Jesus, ye who were sometimes or afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: Your access to come and worship and participate in the union we have with Christ is blood bought.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_00: What a precious cost that was shed for not only your eternal salvation, but your very life in Christ to live it here now.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_00: You have the right to, and you have the privilege to, and quite frankly, you have the obligation to, because of what he's done for you.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's been bought by Christ, for he is our peace, who have made both one.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_00: What a union that is.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_00: Jew, Gentile, you've been made one by the blood of Christ.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_00: You and me, we've been made one by the blood of Christ.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, he broke down that middle wall partition between us.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_00: Again, Jew and Gentile, but even you and me.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_00: Anything that would separate you and me, we should uh just see it as torn down by the blood of Christ.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_00: We have something so precious that should unite us that anything else that could divide us should be thrown out because uh we made one.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: He says, for making in himself of twain one new man, that's a metaphor because it's not talking about one man, it's talking about the body of Christ is made out of two Jew and Gentile.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_00: Nope, now just the body of Christ, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now I read that all my life, thinking he slain the enmity between us and God, and he did, but that verse is talking about he slain any enmity that should be between you and me, because we should be participating not just in fellowship with Christ, but in fellowship with each other in Christ.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he came and he preached peace to you which were far off, Gentiles, or me, or you, and to them which are nigh.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_00: And through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_00: Then he goes into, and yeah, okay, I was gonna do this.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_00: Whole message would be about what's coming, but I'm not gonna do that.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I'll say this now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_00: But fellow citizens, what a unity that is.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_00: Fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's there's a mixed metaphors here that you can go and read and study and pray that God shows you, or maybe we'll preach on it and talk about it many days hence.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_00: But fellow strangers, you're not strangers, you're not foreigners to God or to each other.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're strangers to this world, but he goes, you have a citizenship, you have a country, you have a belonging to participate in.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what is it we should do as citizens of this country?
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_00: Participate in it without letting it overwhelm us, right?
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_00: But in this country, you're a citizen of, in the country of Israel, the spiritual Israel of the church, you should participate fully.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, and you're the household of God.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_00: The household.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's like the family.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now I have a big family.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_00: We went to a family reunion, and our family reunion was filled with a bunch of households.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_00: We were all blood related, but but the household, that was just my my family, right?
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_00: My family came in with the household of my brother's family, and my brother's family, my sister's family.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_00: We used to all be the household of my dad's family, right?
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_00: But now we all have our own households.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see the closeness of that family relationship?
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_00: God's family is innumerable.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_00: The united with Christ legally, the united with Christ vitally, that's innumerable.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a household.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's a place where we can dwell where he is.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can come visit me.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of you came and visit me, but you're gonna go home.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_00: But you know who's not going home?
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_00: My household.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna be together tonight.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're having dinner tonight.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're gonna dwell together.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you're of the household of God.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he's talking here about the church now, and our built.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now he's going to a metaphor of a building.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_00: The church is not this building, the this church, Grace Church, Grace Local Body Church was started in 1913 and it was called Ephesus.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not even the name that really matters, right?
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's the doctrines and the practices that we believe go back to the apostles, and we'll read that in just a second.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_00: But Grace Church was constituted in 1913 as Ephesus, and it was not here.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_00: And even when it bought this piece of property, this building wasn't here.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_00: There was an old wood building that is no longer here.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not the building, but it says you're built.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you understand the metaphor, but the metaphor has appropriateness.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You're built upon the foundation, brother Mike mentioned this yesterday, of the apostles.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's the apostles' doctrine.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, they didn't originate it.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_00: Paul didn't originate it when he said my doctrine, he didn't mean that he came up with it, but it was given to him and he took an ownership of it.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_00: But we're built on the foundation of the apostles, which was the doctrine of Christ that he gave them, but they didn't add anything to it.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that Christ's doctrine, Christ even said, My doctrine is not my own, but my father's that sent me.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, it's the doctrine of God.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_00: But we are built on the foundation of the apostles, and we have no right to lay any other foundation than what the apostles laid out.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it says here, this foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_00: It all starts with Christ, it all goes back to Christ.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is squared up with Christ.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_00: If it's not squared up with Christ, we're off, we're off the foundation.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, but then it says, in whom in Christ, all the building fitly framed together groweth.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's a growing that should happen.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_00: Growing individually and a growing together and a growing in size.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_00: If the Lord will bless, we pray that the Lord will bless people to come in.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: But this building that's groweth together unto a holy temple.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_00: In the Lord, in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as I'm in closing, Sister Judy, I have five minutes.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_00: This analogy of the temple was is not meant to be missed, but it is just an analogy.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about this building.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_00: If we are here or for old school, it's not about the location.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_00: Christ said the true worshipers will worship in spirit and in truth.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's not geographic, but it is a place.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's a place where we come to assemble where spirit and truth is how we worship.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_00: But this temple analogy, that's the place they went to offer sacrifices.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it was built up of stones.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_00: Peter will tell, and we can go read Peter, but I won't turn to it.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_00: He says that this stone, which the builders rejected, it has become the head of the corner, the chief corner stone.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_00: And ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house unto the Lord.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_00: So he uses the same analogy Peter does.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he says it's to offer spiritual sacrifices unto God.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_00: See, that's what happens at the temple.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_00: At the temple, they offered sacrifices.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_00: Not just once a year, but there was one special one a year, but every day.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_00: Multiple times a day.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it was for a group, sometimes it was for individuals, sometimes it was a thanksgiving offering.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it was a supplic uh or a sin offering.
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um there was there's sometimes it was just a cleansing offering, or because you had been cleansed offering, but the point was it was sacrifices and offerings that were offered in a place where they offered them.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're built up the temple.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're built up the temple.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're like the lively stone, living stones.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_00: Analogy, but your stone has been set in the wall of the temple.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_00: What's interesting is the way God blessed them to build the temple back in 1 Kings chapter 6.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'll just I'll point you there so you can go and read it and prove that I don't make this stuff up.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_00: We should take everything from Scripture, right?
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_00: But 1 Kings chapter 6, when Solomon's building the temple, and just look only at, oh, there's there was a lot in here I'd like to talk about, but I just want to look only at verse 7.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the house, the temple, when it was in building, was built of stone, made ready before it was brought thither.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron herd in the house while it was a building.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_00: In building, you know what that means is they did all the cutting of the stone away from the build site, and they brought it in and they just set it in the wall.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was already ready already.
• 1:10:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was right where it was supposed to go.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're the stones that build up the temple of the house.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_00: How did you get made ready?
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't come in here to get made ready.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_00: God made you ready when He was you were born again by His Spirit, and He gave you every faculty needed to offer up spiritual sacrifices to Him.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, do we learn more?
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, amen.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_00: We should learn more here, but we don't get any more ready to be part of the church.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're made ready by the blood of Christ.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_00: He bought your access, he bought your right to be here, He did all the fashioning of the stone, and you have a place.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_00: You have a place in the kingdom, you have a place in the building.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_00: And let us all grow up together in the house.
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I will close by saying if you want, if you desire to be part of and participate in the house of God, which we fully believe to be the church of Jesus Christ, the house of God is the church of God.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says that to Timothy.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_00: I believe it to be there too.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's churches represented here.
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Primitive Baptist churches, we all believe the same thing.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just tell us you want to join the church, and we will take care of that desire as we stand and sing a hymn.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Brother Owen, do we have a number?
• 1:11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Number 219.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_00: We'll have a right hand opposite.
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_00: We'll start with this side, and you know how we just