The following is a lightly edited transcript and may contain errors.
Contents
The Five Solas
God Begins, Sustains, and Finishes the Work
Why We Celebrate Easter
Sustaining Grace
It Is Finished
The Veil Is Torn
The Empty Tomb
Closing Prayer
Starting in chapter 1, verse 1:
Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:1–6)
Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this Easter Sunday, that we can celebrate the resurrection of your Son. We thank you that he has victory over death. We thank you, Lord, that we have forgiveness of sins through his sacrifice. And Lord, we pray that message would resonate throughout the churches today in America and this world, Lord, that people would hear the good news, that they can be saved from their sins, that they can be forgiven, and that forgiveness is found only in your Son, Jesus. We thank you, Lord, for the newness of life that we have in Christ, and that that offer [audio unclear] receive it and let us act on it for your glory. Amen.
I’m going to be primarily focused on verse 6, because all of that is really packed into “at the day of Jesus Christ.” So from the first day, from the first day, he says in verse 5, until now. So Paul goes, he’s planting churches, and one of the churches that he’s planted is in Philippi. And so what’s happening in Philippi? There’s believers, the gospel is going forth, people are getting saved, and what’s happening as they’re saved? They’re growing, right? What happens to believers? Believers grow in their faith. So they’re learning. What are they learning? Hey, they’re learning the same things that we’re learning. Right? The truths haven’t changed. Two thousand years, it’s still the same. So verse 5. He says, “because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now,” so they’re doing all these things. We get all the teaching right here, the same stuff. [audio unclear]
The Five Solas
It is the five solas of the Reformation. Do you know the five solas of the Reformation? There’s sola scriptura, and what’s the idea behind sola scriptura? It’s that Scripture alone is sufficient for what we need for salvation. Sola scriptura. Then you have solus Christus. Christ alone, right? What’s the idea there? What Christ did, and Christ alone, is sufficient for salvation. You don’t have to add anything to it. Nothing to it. You don’t have to add anything to it. So it’s Christ alone. Then you have sola fide, anybody? Faith alone, right? So how do we receive the redemption? It’s faith alone. Faith, not works. It’s faith alone. And then you have sola gratia. Grace alone. Like, how does God save us? By grace. We’re saved through faith. That’s how he appropriates it, the vehicle by which he delivers it, but it’s God’s grace that saves us. We’re saved by grace through faith. And then soli Deo gloria. To God alone the glory. He is the only one worthy of glory. True? I mean, he is the Creator. He’s our Father. He deserves it all. So this distinguished the Reformers from the teaching of Rome. Where do works fit in? Not with our salvation. Not with us. Works come in after salvation. Where’s your role in all of this? What are you called to do? Repent and believe. You’re called to repent and believe. Notice this whole theme is going on throughout Philippians. If we go towards the end of chapter 1, I want you to see something. He says in verse 27, Philippians 1:
Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ. (Philippians 1:27)
Okay, so there’s where the works come in, right? What happens, you walk it out. A saved person does good works. A person doesn’t do good works to be saved, but a saved person does good works. So “only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God.” Notice what it says right there at the end: “and that from God.” What’s from God? Your salvation. Really, the destruction, but also the salvation. Salvation is from God. It’s all of God’s, which means it’s none of yours. In fact, he emphasizes that in the very next verse. Look at verse 29:
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake. (Philippians 1:29)
That little phrase there, “granted to you,” in the Greek it’s just the verbal form of grace. If you wanted to like make it super literal, you could say it has been graced to you. Grace has been given to you. What’s that grace do? It saves you. Without God’s grace you don’t believe. In fact, you couldn’t believe. So what part of your salvation do you owe him? All of it. What credit can you take? None. Right? Listen to Titus chapter 3, verse 5:
He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. (Titus 3:5)
Simply put, God is the one who saves us. He does the work in us. There’s no place for us to say, hey, look at me. Look how smart I am, look how wise I am, look how awesome I am. No, we’re not worthy. We’re not worthy. So what does Christ do? He makes us worthy. 1 Corinthians, it talks about not many of you were noble, not many of you were wise. And what does God do? He comes into the picture and saves us.
God Begins, Sustains, and Finishes the Work
Even at the very beginning, go back to the beginning of chapter 1, we find out what God is doing and how he acts and interacts with us. Philippians 1, verse 2, he says, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Now this is at the beginning of most of his letters, so it’s very easy for us to gloss over this and we’re like, oh yeah, yeah, it’s the introduction and he’s telling us who he is and it’s this normal grace and peace, but this is actually very important. Why? Because I want us to focus just briefly on this little tiny word “from.” “Grace to you and peace from.” And this one preposition controls the two objects that follow it: God the Father and Jesus Christ. It’s very important. Why? [audio unclear] But notice what the Father and the Son—and they’re doing it together. Notice what they give. They give grace and they give peace. But even further in Greek, and this isn’t the time for a Greek lesson, but just understand he could have actually put two “froms” here. We wouldn’t translate it like that in English. He could have said, and sometimes some versions actually do, and it gets a little confusing, but he could have said “grace and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” Sometimes you have two “froms” in Greek. Sometimes you have just one. It’s actually important, because what he’s suggesting by just using one here is that there is unity and singularity of source. In fact, it would not be an overstatement to say that you have here, in just this use of the one word “from,” a hint at the divinity of Jesus. I mean, the fact that you already put God the Father and Jesus Christ in the same sentence together, and that they’re both giving the grace, it does seem to indicate something, right? Like, how can just a mere man give a saving grace to someone else? Not possible. So just in that alone, that the Father and the Son are linked together there. Paul wants to make that even more clear, and by just using that one word “from,” there’s a sense of identification of both objects, in this case the Father and the Son, being together. So being grouped with the Father would be an argument you could make in and of itself, but even more so when you realize that the Greek favors the grouping of them together. It’s not just the Father and the Son. It’s the Father and the Son. So the triune God not only begins the work—he does begin the work, right? There is a day of salvation for everyone who believes. True? There’s a day, there’s a beginning, the day of salvation. But the triune God also sustains the work. Notice again in verse 6, what does Paul say? “And I am sure of this.” Some of your translations say, “And I am confident of this.” So he’s confident. What? Well, one, of their salvation. But he’s also confident of their preservation. Or you could say their perseverance. Why? Because, listen, God always finishes what he starts. He always finishes what he starts. So Paul can say and know that they’ll make it. Why can he be confident about this? Is he confident because of the Philippian believers? I mean, they had a couple of issues going on, nothing major like the Corinthians, nothing major like the Colossians, but they had some stuff that he addresses later in the letter. But is he confident because of them, or because of the God who gives them the salvation? Because of God. That’s why he [audio unclear]
Why We Celebrate Easter
And someday each one of us, the body that goes into the grave will be the body that is raised. And the Bible says some to everlasting life and some to everlasting punishment. But why do we do this annually? Why Easter annually? Because, I mean, think about it, the story of Christianity, who does it revolve around? Jesus, right? So it kind of makes sense that maybe we’d annually celebrate his birthday. That’s kind of a big deal, the God-man coming into this world. And hey, maybe annually we’d also celebrate the fact that he has victory over the grave and rose from the dead. Sounds like a good idea, right? And I know some people are not fond of the word Easter. Let me just help put some of that to rest for you today. All right, the name Easter is only a reality in Germanic languages like English. But if you start looking at other languages, any non-Germanic language, especially those with Latin or Greek, you’re going to find it being called Pascha, which derives from the Jewish celebration of Passover. It’s very close to the Hebrew word Pesach. So, how do we get Easter? Listen, if you ever studied languages, not how to speak the language, but just like the history of languages, English is like, it’s amazing it’s even here. I mean, it is such a mix of all sorts of different things, and we have nuances in our language that literally, at least today, maybe one or two other languages in the known world have those same nuances. It’s just a mix of Latin, Greek, but it’s Germanic in [audio unclear] when everyone else is using some form of Pascha. But here’s why, if you want to know. The Old English word for the month of April, the Old English. Like, a lot of people think the King James is Old English. It’s not. Okay. If you can read it, it clearly isn’t Old English. Seriously, if we offered everyone, including myself, like a million dollars today, if you could read a page of Old English, we wouldn’t be able to do it. That’s how different our language is, not kidding. So the Old English word for the month of April was Ēosturmōnaþ, literally Easter-month. So like our calendar, it was the fourth month on their calendar. And it was when Resurrection Sunday almost always fell. When does Resurrection Sunday, what month does it normally occur? April, right? So they just took the first part of that, the Ēostre, and started calling it Easter. Easter. In fact, even the King James, it’s the only version, but the King James actually, in Acts 12, it actually uses and translates that word that would normally be translated Passover. It actually translated it as Easter. Some people try to make some claims about Ēostre, the goddess, and that that’s where the word Easter comes from. You know how many sources we have on the goddess Ostara? We’ve got one source from a seventh-century monk who in his book just wrote like a little tiny blurb on it. And when I was preparing my sermon, and was doing research, like there’s pages and pages, like they’ve extrapolated all sorts of things about this religion that they don’t even know is accurate or not. So we have one source that he just happened to mention about this goddess worship, and then people try to say, oh well yes, if you use the word Easter you’re actually worshiping this god. That’s not true. Just not true. Now the term was there way before. Some people try to say with Ishtar as well. Listen, there’s no historical, linguistic, or cultural connection between the Christian celebration of Easter and this ancient Near Eastern goddess Ishtar. The only similarity might be in the names looking a little bit or sounding a little bit similar. But there’s no correlation nor causation.
You want to talk about bunnies for a minute? Got bunnies out in your house. It’s okay, you’re not a pagan. Okay. Some people say that’s a pagan symbol or it’s a fertility cult. No. The idea of an Easter bunny being a pagan symbol comes from a passing comment in the writing of a nineteenth-century folklorist. You probably have heard of him before. Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm. You probably know him as Grimm from Grimm’s fairy tales, but he actually had no real evidence to make the claim. He just actually suggested that maybe there’s a connection between the fertility of bunnies and ancient pagan fertility cults. I mean, he just suggested it, but he was kind of a popular guy, so that kind of caught on and spread, but there’s no evidence of bunnies being [audio unclear] Instead, what can be drawn from the literature is the fact that Easter happens in the springtime in Western countries. And what happens in the springtime? You’ve probably seen them running throughout your yard. Bunnies, right? So the connection there is probably what happened. There’s bunnies running everywhere. The only association between bunnies with the religious festival can be tangibly tied to the sixteenth-century Germans connecting these animals with Easter, as it was a time when the event happened and you just happened to see these animals more prevalently. The eggs—anyone concerned about the eggs? Did you color any of this here? Okay, you’re good, okay. Because the myth is that the eggs, and particularly the painted eggs, were a common pagan practice and decoration. No. In fact, you can certainly find eggs in all sorts of rituals of the pagans, but guess what? They use all sorts of foods. Okay? Yes, they would use whatever food was common that they had available at their disposal. Well, what did they have available at their disposal? Eggs. That would be one of the foods they would have. It’s a common food for obvious reasons. No, our earliest reference to the Easter egg actually comes from the thirteenth century, Edward Longshanks, also known as King Edward I. What did he do? He decorated hundreds of hard-boiled eggs with golden leaves to be handed out to family and friends during the Easter season. That seems to be where we get that practice from. So enjoy the word Easter, enjoy the bunnies, enjoy the eggs. I mean, don’t let it overshadow the Savior, right? And what does our Savior do? Well, listen, he doesn’t save us and leave us to our own devices. Matthew 28:20 again. “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” he says in Hebrews. God is not a God who just leaves us alone. He doesn’t say, hey, I hope it works out for you. No.
Sustaining Grace
Paul knew that they had the grace of God. He knew it had been poured out on them. And what do we see repeatedly throughout the Scriptures? 1 Corinthians 1, it says in verse 8, God “who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He’s going to sustain his children to the end. 1 Peter 5, he says something similar:
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. (1 Peter 5:10)
That’s a whole lot of things that God is doing for us in Christ, right? Restore, confirm, strengthen, establish you. So when it comes to your salvation, God saves you and he’s going to make sure that you cross the finish line. Take confidence in him. Take confidence in him. And stand firm on his promises. Listen, some of you need to be reminded of his sustaining grace. It’s a sustaining grace. Are you tired? Are you worn out? Are you ready to give up? Well, listen, brothers and sisters, go to Christ. Return to him. He will sustain you. And listen, you know, sometimes, [audio unclear] I can make it. You don’t need to have enough to make it to the next ten, twenty, or forty years. You need enough to make it to tomorrow. And then what do you find? God will give you enough to make it to the next day, and the next day, and the next day. If you’re in a bad place, the forecast can always seem to be cloudy with thunderstorms likely. [audio unclear] daily bread, and how often does he give it? What does he tell us in Matthew 6? “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” You know, again, you start looking into the future, sometimes it can start stressing you out, freaking you out. No, one day at a time. You’re trusting the Lord. He will give you what you need for that day, and he will get you into the next day. Look at Isaiah chapter 40. Keep your place in Philippians because we’ll come back. Isaiah chapter 40. [audio unclear]
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:28–31)
Now, what does Isaiah ground all of this in? Why can he promise that we won’t grow weary? He grounds it in verse 28. First he starts, “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.” He created it all, including you. And then it says, “He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable.” Well, the one who doesn’t grow weary can also make it so that we don’t grow weary. The one who does not faint can make it so that we do not faint. He gives power, it says, verse 29, to the faint. And to him who has no might, he increases strength. So you might be sitting there thinking, I can’t do it. I don’t have the strength. I don’t have the ability. That’s true in and of yourself. But in Christ, he gives it to you. In Christ, he provides the strength. In Christ, he makes sure that the weariness is wiped away. He will make sure to sustain you to the end. He will make sure that you persevere to the end. So let God be the one who renews you. That’s who you go to. Let God be the one who strengthens you. Let it be his power and his might that falls upon you and changes you. He’s the one that starts the work. He’s the one that sustains the work. And guess what? He’s the one that finishes the work. God finishes what he starts. Look back in Philippians. He’ll bring it to what? Completion. Completion at the day of Jesus Christ. He’s going to bring it to complete. Not might bring it. Will bring it. So take confidence, not in yourself, but that God commits to you that he will see you to the end. And if it’s our work, if it depends on our strength, our will, our desire, yes, it’s not going to work. It’s God’s work, first and foremost, it’s his work. Here’s what John Chrysostom, one of the ancient fathers, said:
Having just given them a superb testimonial, in order that they should not feel down and out as human beings are so apt to feel, he immediately teaches them to refer both the past and the future, everything, to Christ, who will bring to completion what he has begun in them. He does not take away anything from their achievement. For he has said, “I rejoice because of your fellowship,” obviously pointing to their own very high level of accountability. But he does not imply that the achievement would be theirs alone. Rather, it was God’s work in them.
It Is Finished
And what does Jesus say at the end of his earthly life? As he’s on the cross, he says, at the very end, just one word in Greek, we translate it into three words. He says, tetelestai. Tetelestai. It is finished. It is finished. And what happens then? It says in John 19, and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Was that the end? No. Praise the Lord. It wasn’t the end. But was the work finished? Yes. Everything that God the Father covenanted with God the Son to do had been completed. He lived the perfect life, walked it out day after day, roughly some thirty years. So he was obedient to the Father, even in the garden, right? What does he pray? [audio unclear] He drank the cup. He took the punishment. He was crucified for you. Your sins placed on him. He paid the punishment that each one of us should pay. He paid the punishment. So the wrath of God was poured out on his own Son so that you wouldn’t have to receive the wrath of God. Listen, brothers and sisters, think of how many people have tried to snuff out Christianity over the ages, even from its infancy. Like King Herod, he’s like, this is the end of Christianity, like he wanted to stop it before it even started. Kill Jesus, problem solved. All right, he made the same mistake that Satan made. Killed Jesus, problem solved. But then even Emperor Nero, this is the end of Christianity. Emperor Diocletian, this is the end of Christianity. I mean, you can just follow these emperors, Emperor Julian the Apostate, this, and then time goes on. You have the Muslim Umayyad Caliphate, this is the end of Christianity. That’s what the Muslims were trying to do. The Ottoman Empire, this is the end of Christianity. The USSR, this is the end of Christianity. You know what G. K. Chesterton said? “Christianity has died many times and risen again, for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.” Many have tried and all have failed.
I want you to see this picture behind me. When visiting the temple in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus, this is one of the warning signs you would have seen. It appeared both in Latin and Greek. And it would be hanging on a balustrade outside the inner court of the temple. Can anyone read that? Here’s what it reads: “No stranger is to enter within the balustrade round the temple and enclosure. Whoever is caught will be himself responsible for his ensuing death.” The first-century Jewish historian Josephus, he confirms this, and he records that pillars declared the law of purity, some in Greek and some in Roman letters, that no foreigner should go within that sanctuary. What was the message, literally etched in stone? Do not enter. You are not free to come here. That was the message. But what did God do? What did he do? He tore the veil. He tore the veil from top to bottom, it says in the Scripture. He tore the veil, symbolizing what? That there was access to the Father. You didn’t need an earthly priest, some person offering the blood of a lamb. You had the perfect Lamb of God shed for the forgiveness of the sins of all the people. So it’s no longer an “I do not enter” sign. Now, it’s a welcome sign. And all are invited in. Turn to Hebrews chapter 10.
The Veil Is Torn
Hebrews chapter 10, starting in verse 19:
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:19–22)
Right? So originally, no entrance. No entrance. Now what does it say? We have confidence to enter the holy places. But why do we have the confidence? Well, it tells us right there. By the blood of Jesus. That’s the only way we can enter into the presence of God, by the blood of Jesus. It goes on, “by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh.” It is, I mean, it’s literally talking about that curtain that was hanging there. And it’s saying here, it’s making that as an analogy with his flesh. And “since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” How is that all possible? Because Jesus, two thousand years ago, died for you. He died for you. And he made the way to God accessible. Everything that you should receive from the wrath of God can be abated through Jesus Christ. Someday, each one of us will stand before God. It says in Hebrews, it’s appointed for man once to die, and then the judgment. So we’re going to die one day unless Jesus comes back before then, but we’re going to die and we’re going to stand before him, and we have to have someone account for our sin. Someone has to pay the penalty. The wages of sin is what? The wages of sin is death. The gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. But there’s a wage to pay for our sin. It says it right there, the wages of sin, it’s death. It’s not just a physical death, it’s a spiritual death. So you’re going to appear before God and someone has to pay the penalty. Someone has to pay the punishment, the wages are due. So what’s going to happen? Well, you’re either going to stand on your own and you’re going to pay the penalty by having God’s wrath poured out on you in hell, or you will have Jesus there. That’s the two. That’s the two options. That’s the two options. I mean, Jesus paid it all. We have a God who is right. You have to repent, you have to come to Christ. You have to believe, you have to repent. All those things that you’ve been doing, you turn away. You turn away. You don’t do good works to get saved, but the saved person does good works, which means they’re not going to do the bad works. They’re going to walk in righteousness before God. How can they do that? Because they have the righteousness of Christ in them. If we try to walk in righteousness of our own, scales to be our salvation based on our salvation. If you think you would come out ahead, then you’ve deceived yourself. You don’t realize how great your sins are and how many they are. We would never want the scales of justice to weigh us on works. We would be found wanting. Thankfully, God has the scales of justice based on the merited [audio unclear] that earned our salvation. He earned it. He died on the cross. He was obedient.
The Empty Tomb
And how do we know that he carried it out? The tomb is empty. The tomb is empty. Any person who is a skeptic has to deal with that. No one debates that the tomb was empty. The atheists don’t. The Buddhists don’t. The Muslims don’t. The Hindus don’t. No one debates the tomb was empty. You have to answer the question, why was it empty? All the evidence points to the tomb being empty because Jesus rose from the dead. All the evidence points to that. Yes, there’s different arguments and theories, we’re not going to go into them. But the unbeliever, the skeptic, the person that doesn’t believe, has to answer that question. They can come up with all sorts of reasons to believe, don’t deceive yourself. Jesus rose from the dead. Physical resurrection. And what does that show? That he has power over the grave, that what he declared was true. What does he even say? I have power to lay my life down, and I have power to what? Take it back up. And what did he do? He took it back up. Why did he do it? For you. For you. He covenanted with the Father to go on a rescue mission to rescue who? Us. And you can be made right with God by coming to him. You repent from your sins and you trust in what Jesus did. You trust in him. The Bible uses the word believe. Trust kind of has more of that emphasis and probably more of the flavor of that word there. Right? When you trust, it’s complete confidence in that person. You have to trust in what Jesus did for you. Think about it. Genesis ends with Joseph’s death. Deuteronomy ends with Moses’ death. Joshua ends with Joshua’s death. The Gospels end with Jesus’ resurrection. And that changes everything. Listen, brothers and sisters, Jesus’ death on the cross, it was not the backup plan. It wasn’t the backup plan. That was the plan all along. Listen to Acts chapter 2, verse 23:
This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. (Acts 2:23–24)
This was the plan from the beginning, from before the beginning of time. Brothers and sisters, find your strength, your hope in Christ. He is enough. Rest in him. I talked about being tired. What does Jesus say? “Come to me,” Matthew 11, “all who labor and are heavy laden.” And what does he promise? “I will give you rest.” Trust in Jesus for your salvation. I was talking with someone the other day about this, actually at life group a couple nights ago. I mean, when I’m talking to people, the thing I always ask them is, look, I’m basing what I believe on this book right here. Now you can mock it, you can make fun of it, you can try to tear it apart, but like that’s my a priori. Like, here’s where I’m living from, right here, what this thing says. I believe it’s the inspired, infallible, and inerrant word of God. But if I’m talking to someone and they’re a believer, what is, like, here’s where I point to and look to. What do you point to and look to? Like, what is, this is my ultimate source of truth and how to live. What is your ultimate source of truth on how to live? And a lot of times, I mean, they don’t know, but really what it comes down to is themselves, right? Their wisdom, their knowledge, their intellect. Well, I don’t know about you, but I would not want to be in a position of placing my salvation in myself. No, we need to place it in a place where it can be firmly grounded, where it’s not going to be shaken, where the winds and the waves of life aren’t going to toss us and we’re going to be changing our mind. No, God’s word stands. So ground it in something that is objective and absolute and that comes from the Creator of the universe himself. Look to Jesus for your salvation. Listen, brothers and sisters, let me just speak. Let me just speak to anyone who is not a brother or sister. How many sermons do you have to hear of mine before you come to Christ and trust in him? How many sermons? Ten, twenty. Listen, some of you sit here and know you should give it all over to him. But you’re resisting. I mean, Paul resisted. Paul resisted. And what is he told? Hey, why are you kicking? It’s like an interesting phrase. “Why are you kicking against the goads?” Basically, why are you pushing back? Well, that’s the same question that God asks you. Why are you pushing back? He wants you to surrender. Surrender and come to Christ. Trust in him. Stop resisting. Do you think that resisting is from the Lord? It’s not. It’s your flesh, or maybe the enemy, or probably both. But stop resisting and trust in him. If you do that, the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord, available to all. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ. We can trust in that and continue to press on, knowing that he will strengthen and sustain us to the end. Let’s pray.
Closing Prayer
Father, we thank you that you are the sustainer that carries us through and through the hardships of life, the trials, the temptations, that you are faithful even when we’re not. And we thank you, Lord, that it’s your work, and you do finish what you begin. So we pray, Lord, that you would continue to sustain us as we know you will. That you continue to have us persevere as we know you will. Let us be faithful to the end. Let us cross that finish line in full stride. Father, I pray for anyone here who might not know you. Today, let today be the day of salvation for them. Let them have heard your words and trust in you. Let them receive the gift of eternal life today. Plant your word in them and cause it to grow and grow and grow and be fruitful. And I pray the same for the rest of us, that your word would be planted in our hearts, Lord, and grow abundantly and have much, much fruit. All for your glory. Amen.