Sermon Transcript
The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.
- Luke 2
- Was Jesus Born in December?
- The Shepherds’ Example
- Their Profession of Faith
- Seeing Is Not Believing
- The Meaning of Faith
- Faith That Acts
- Unbelief and Answered Prayer
- Come to Jesus and Make Him Known
- The Religious Affections
- A Footnote on Worship
- An Invitation to Trust Christ
- Closing Prayer
Luke 2
Do I have a good Christmas? Yes. Hallelujah. That’s the important word actually. Yahweh. [audio unclear] So the question is anybody put on any weight over the holidays? It’s bad, isn’t it? It’s bad. Well, I’m not going to start my diet yet. Let’s see if I [audio unclear] ever start that diet. You know what I mean. Open your Bibles if you would to Luke chapter 2.
Luke chapter 2 we’ve been looking at for the past few weeks. Let’s start reading in verse 8 again. It says, in the same country shepherds living out in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night. Behold an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, Do not be afraid, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there’s born to you this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you you will find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. So it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven that the shepherds said to one another, let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us. And they came with haste, and they found Mary and Joseph and the babe [audio unclear] Let’s bow. Amen. Father we thank you for your word. We ask that you would open it to us today. We ask for your spirit to enlighten our hearts. Give us ears to hear what you want to say to us today. I pray, Lord, that my words would be pleasing in Your sight. I pray in Your name and for Your glory alone. Amen.
Was Jesus Born in December?
I don’t know if you’ve heard, you’ve heard that supposedly Jesus wasn’t born in December. You heard that right? I, I’ve heard that from, I got saved when I was 20. That was way back when there was like BC, you know, cassettes, you know, BC. So I heard that over and over and over because of this text in Luke. Well, shepherds wouldn’t be out at night in the winter. Well, recently I read a book on the birth of Jesus, a very academic egghead kind of book on the birth of Jesus. And it thoroughly convinced me that Jesus was indeed born in December. It is the most detailed study I’ve ever read on the birth of Jesus. And I’d read other things where some authors argued there’s a good chance he was born in December, January, but this book just blew my mind. Just as a little footnote, I think in the south we’ve been seeing a lot of bad weather right floods tornadoes I think today or tomorrow in some parts of the south it’s going to be 75 degrees it’s winter well did you know if you if you take a line the latitude of Bethlehem is about the latitude of Atlanta Georgia it’s 75 degrees there you know what I’m saying? So the fact that it’s December doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s cold. So it doesn’t necessarily mean that the shepherds would not be out at night. Now it doesn’t prove Jesus was born in December. That’s based upon many other calculations. But the point I’m making is very often preachers would just flippantly say Jesus clearly wasn’t born in the winter because the shepherds were out. That’s simply not true. I believe He was born in the winter and I don’t know if we can nail down the exact date but I think we can get very close. Anyway that’s not what my sermon is about. That was an intro.
The Shepherds’ Example
What’s the sermon about? Oh, okay. So we’ve looked at the past couple weeks at the angelic announcement and the angelic hymn where the angels come and they announce that the Savior is born, the Savior is Christ the Lord. Messiah would be the term, Messiah the Lord. And this was good news, glad tidings of great joy to all people. And then they break out into song and they say glory to God in the highest. And so we’ve learned that Jesus is the Savior. He’s the Savior made available to all that God in giving us Jesus was not only focusing on saving us, which of course He was but he was also focusing on something really ultimately even more important and that was his own glory because in the incarnation and in God’s plan of salvation the way that he redeemed mankind he revealed the glories of his attributes he demonstrated his humility in the incarnation he revealed his justice and love at the cross. And he displayed himself in his son in a magnificent way that brought him honor and glory. And so the angels said, praise God, let’s give God glory that Christ is born. And so then we have the account of the shepherds. And How did they respond to this announcement? How did they respond to the hymn? Well, we’re told here that they said, wow. It’s not really in the Greek, but kind of like, wow. Let’s go see this thing. Now, I have to admit something that I feel really foolish admitting. But in verse 15, where it so says, Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us. I’ve read that passage how many times, right? Just many, many, many, many, many times over the years. And I’ve always misread it. I just realized, as I was studying this passage this week, that I had misread this verse for years. How so? I’m glad he asked that question. I’m at least one person isn’t in a food coma this morning. How did I misread it? I thought it said this. I thought it said, let’s now go to Bethlehem and see if this thing had come to pass. Now it doesn’t say if, does it? And it, it doesn’t even imply if, and where that if came from. But it’s not there. But somehow I thought their response was one of, okay, let’s go see if this thing really happened. Which is the exact opposite of what the text is really saying. Because the thing that we can learn from the shepherds, and the thing I want to focus on this morning, and my sermon we can entitle The Shepherd’s Example. So nobody texts me and asks me the title of the sermon later. The shepherd’s example. And what is it an example of? What do we learn from the shepherds? We learn faith. The meaning of faith. Because what we see here are three things. We see their profession of faith, which we’ll get to in a moment. We see their actions based on faith and then we see their praise or their worship which was a result of their faith.
Their Profession of Faith
First let’s look at their profession of faith. Verse 15, notice what it says, let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us. Notice that they’re saying the angels told them and the angels of course were the representatives of God of the Lord. So they believed and embraced that message because they said, let’s go see what has, not let’s go see if it has come to pass. Let’s go see what we know has come to pass and what God has made known to us. So this is an expression of confidence and faith in the revelation of God made known to them. There’s no if about it. Now
Seeing Is Not Believing
when we talk about the the the meaning of faith, I often hear people say you know if I could just see the Shekinah glory one time. You know if I could just see an angel one time. If I could just if Jesus would just appear to me one time. If I could just see somebody raised from the dead one time. As if by seeing they would then believe. That is anti-biblical. That is not what the Bible teaches us. Over and over and over the Bible teaches just the opposite. Just the way I was reading that text the wrong way. Guess what? You’re reading the Bible the wrong way if you think that by seeing something miraculous you will have more faith. Now I’m not saying we shouldn’t pray for God to do miraculous things when needed. But I can assure you this, God is not a dog and pony show. Okay, he doesn’t perform for us to entertain us. It’s not how it works. And seeing is not believing. In the Old Testament we see over and over and over God revealing his power to Israel. Right? He brings them out of Egypt, he parts the Red Sea. That’s a pretty big miracle, don’t you think? I mean, don’t you think? There’s a pillar, there’s a cloud by day, there’s fire by night. That’s a pretty big thing, right? And over and over and over in the wilderness, what do we see? Unbelief. God gives the manna from heaven. What do we see? Unbelief. God turns bitter water into sweet. What do we see? Unbelief. seeing is not believing. Then when we go to the New Testament it’s astounding Jesus is in the midst of the people. Jesus heals people in their midst. He raises the dead in their midst. He does every conceivable type of miracle. He calms the sea. He calms the storms. He rules over nature. He rules over the demons. He rules over natural infirmity. He rules over everything, and the apostles are like, oh, we forgot the bread. We forgot the bread. And Mark says, their hearts were still hardened. You see, seeing is not believing. Now, if you really believe, then you will see. But it doesn’t work the other way around. Because if someone’s heart is not open, they can see and they will have a different explanation. And the most extreme example, which I’ve alluded to recently, is the Pharisees when Jesus heals, they said they couldn’t deny that it happened because it happened right before their eyes, but they had to deny that it was God working through Jesus, okay? So they said, well of course, it must be the devil. Yes, it’s a miracle, but it’s a demonic miracle. That’s how the unbelieving heart works. It will not be convinced by evidence. It will not be convinced by seeing. So seeing is not believing. Now if you need God to work a miracle in your life, then pray for that miracle. But don’t ask God to do something to convince you so you will believe because he will not respond to that. That’s why Jesus said in the Gospels, he says, an evil generation seeks after a sign. Now the amazing thing about the Pharisees in the Gospels is Jesus was healing like daily, daily. And then they walk up and say, Jesus, show me a sign. What? Were you not just here when He healed that man? That’s why he said he called them an evil generation, because they had all the signs they needed, but he wasn’t going to do it on cue. You understand what I’m saying? He was not going to be manipulated. He wasn’t going to perform for them. That’s not why God does miracles. He does miracles for His glory and for our good and not to perform. So seeing is not believing. If we want to see, and I mean see with the eyes of faith, then we must first believe. So when we talk about faith, what are we talking about? Well it’s really striking that when you study faith in the Bible how many different words and expressions are used for faith in the Bible.
The Meaning of Faith
When it refers to the Lord Jesus, the scripture talks about coming to Christ.
Jesus said, come unto me. Well that’s saying really have faith in me. The scripture talks about receiving. It uses the word receiving Christ. Paul says as you have received the Lord Jesus, so walk in him. It talks about building on Christ. It talks about putting on Christ. Jesus talks about eating and drinking his body and blood, and these are expressions of faith. Scripture talks about laying hold on Christ. Scripture talks about looking, looking to Christ, clearly with the eyes of faith, and many other such expressions. In the Old Testament, often we’ll see the word trust or faith, but if you study the Hebrew what you find that some of these words mean to roll upon. It’s a good one, isn’t it? Roll upon. It’s the idea of literally having a big rock and you roll it up and set it there.
And it’s resting there. So roll upon the Lord, lean upon the Lord, rest in the Lord, wait on the Lord. All of these are terms which describe faith. Faith is not a mere intellectual assent, although it involves the intellect. In our text here, the shepherds say, let us now go to Bethlehem, in verse 15, and see the thing which has come to pass, there’s the expression of faith, which the Lord has made known to us. So faith involves the intellect, but it’s not only intellectual. Faith also involves the will. And as we’ll see here,
Faith That Acts
After they made their profession of faith, then they acted on that profession. And then it says that they, in verse 16, they came with haste and they found Mary and Joseph and the babe.
In other words, they acted. Action is volition. But faith is also emotional. Or I like the word affection better than emotion. And then we see them praising God and worshiping God as an expression of their faith.
J.C. Ryle says this, he says, Trust or excuse me true belief is the unreserved trust of a heart convinced of sin in Christ as an all sufficient Savior. Now he’s talking about trust in Christ here, but it applies to trust in God as well. And this is the key phrase. Listen, it is the combined act of the whole man’s head, conscience, heart, and will. It is the combined act. It is not any one of them alone, but it is all of them together. To believe is to engage the entire inner man. We talk about the mind and the heart, but it’s better to describe it as the mind, the emotions, and the will. So it’s intellectual, it’s emotional, it is volitional. It is all of us. It is all of us. If the whole man, the whole inner man, doesn’t trust, then we are reserved. We’re holding back part of ourselves. So [audio unclear] It’s come to pass. Without the Spirit, it’s come to pass. So they make a profession of faith. But then they act on a profession. And so their faith isn’t just intellectual, but it is volitional. So verse 16 it says, and they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen Him they made it known, or my version says, widely known, the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. So we see the evidence of their faith in their actions. It says that they made, they came and they made haste. So can you imagine the shepherds out there saying, wow wasn’t that an awesome performance the angels put on for us? I mean those angels sing really good. And isn’t it cool that the Savior of the world is just right down the street? Isn’t that awesome? Let’s just sit here and talk about it. Let’s sit here and meditate on it. Let’s discuss how could this be? How could the Messiah be born in Bethlehem when we thought this, the scripture said that they didn’t have a theological debate. They didn’t have a discussion. Because they believed they went and they saw. In other words, they acted. And that is always the nature of true faith. True faith always acts with [audio unclear] expectation because they believed. And that’s why it says they came with haste. They were eager to see what they already believed. And then upon seeing it, it says they went out and they made it known, or my version says, they made it known widely. In other words, they shared the good news with other people. Now that’s a good evidence of faith, isn’t it? That they also proclaimed the gospel they had heard and proclaimed Jesus, the Messiah they had seen. So both of these things are the evidence of faith, but they are volitional marks, that is to say they are actions based upon revelation. Actions based upon revelation. Tozer, one of my heroes, says this. You listening?
All right, thank you. He says, to many Christians Christ is little more than an idea, or at best an ideal. He is not a fact. Millions of professed believers talk as if he were real and act as if he were not. And always our actual position is to be discovered by the way we act and not by the way we talk. We can prove our faith by our committal to it and in no other way. And the belief that does not command the one who holds it is not a real belief. It’s a pseudo-belief only. And it might shock some of us profoundly if we were brought suddenly face to face with our beliefs and forced to test them in the fires of practical living. And this is the key. I don’t mean to be critical. I understand how hard life can be. But it is surprising to me how often I hear people make professions of unbelief and they don’t even realize it. They don’t even realize that what they’re saying is really an assertion, God can’t change this situation.
God can’t change this person. God can’t do this, God can’t do that. And they don’t even realize it. I was talking to someone a while ago how they were having financial troubles and I said you should pray that you get a raise, and the response was, That will never happen. And I said, It won’t, not with that attitude. That is to look at your situation, your marriage, your children, your job with the natural eye. That’s the carnal man talking. That is looking at life without God. God can give you a raise. God can give you a better job. God can do all kinds of things in your world if you have faith. But a lot of us act, I mean we’re living like God’s absent from our life. God can do so much more than we think, and it’s our unbelief.
Unbelief and Answered Prayer
But what’s alarming to me isn’t just unbelief. It’s the unawareness of the unbelief. It’s taking unbelief for granted. It’s saying unbelief is okay. Unbelief is normal. Well, it’s just the way it is. Well, I’ll never get a raise. It’s just the way it is. He’ll never change. Oh, it’s just the way it is. Oh, okay. Well, God doesn’t exist then. Because that’s what you’re saying. You know, faith doesn’t mean believing what’s naturally easy. It means believing the impossible. It’s probably impossible, from a natural point of view that you’ll get a raise. But it doesn’t mean it’s impossible from a biblical view. And that’s the view we need to have. It says, let’s go see what the Lord has made known. What has the Lord made known to you? All of it. That’s what the Lord has made known. And I can assure you that if you will read this book and you will ponder this book and meditate in this book and study this book, this book will build your faith. This is what the Lord has made known to us. And this is the object of our faith. True, God is the object, but this is the medium He has given us with His Spirit so that we might believe in Him and believe what the Lord has made known. And God can do great and marvelous things for you. He can do that. Now it doesn’t mean every one of your prayers will be answered. It doesn’t work that way. Because God is sovereign. Okay? He is sovereign. And someday I’m going to give a good sermon on prayer, but let me just say this about that now. We talk about prayer sometimes in a way that’s not, I don’t think, quite biblical. Because we talk about unanswered prayer as if, well, what, God didn’t hear it? Or God was busy? I mean, no, we got an answer. [audio unclear] If you pray for something, you either get it or you don’t. And you’ve got an answer.
Now sometimes it’s confusing because God isn’t saying no, He’s saying later. And that’s why perseverance in prayer is so important. But sometimes you get to the part where you realize, oh, well you know what the answer? The answer, it’s not that the prayer is unanswered, He gave you an answer and he said no. I’m not giving you that thing. A great example is Paul in 2 Corinthians 12 and he talks about his thorn in the flesh. What does he say? He says, I went to the Lord three times. And then God gave him an answer. And the answer was no. I’m not taking that thing away from you. However, I will give you grace to exult in it. But he got an answer. It wasn’t the answer Paul wanted. Paul wanted the thorn to go away. Okay, but Paul wasn’t walking around saying, Well, I prayed tonight, I just thought, unanswered prayer. No, it was answered. Okay, so the Lord will say yes. He will say no, maybe he’ll say later and later is a yes in delay. It’s like putting it on hold. You’re gonna get it later. But you get an answer. And we need to be very clear about this because there’s a lot of vague talk about prayer that I think is misleading. Now, why God says no is a different matter. Because sometimes it’s no because it’s simply not his will. Sometimes it’s no because we’re asking with the wrong motive. I mean, you can go through a list of things and I don’t wanna give a whole sermon on prayer, but my point is that there is a yes and there is a no. And a no is an answer. When your kids say, hey, can I have like just one more big old hunk ice cream before I go to bed? With like a dozen Christmas cookies on top. And whipped cream. And you say, and then dad says no. That’s an answer. That is an answer, isn’t it? Can you imagine a kid going to bed and saying, oh man, my parents wouldn’t tell me what the answer was? No, you got the answer. It was no. Not the answer you wanted, but you got an answer. So I don’t even know why I got off on that. Okay.
Come to Jesus and Make Him Known
The point I was making, the second point is the fact that the faith of the shepherds was evidenced by their action. Both going to see the Christ and then making him known. And I think our faith is pretty much the same today. If we have faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior, then we go to see Him, don’t we? We go to spend time with Him, right? We go to commune with Him, to fellowship with Him, to say, I believe in Jesus and then to never spend time with Him is really a contradiction in terms. It’d be like the shepherd saying, oh, thank you for making that known to us, but we’re just not going to go visit the new Savior. No way. If you believe in Jesus then you will come to Jesus. You will go to Him, you will make haste to go to Him, you will spend time with Him. And then when you do that something exciting happens because the more you get to really know Christ you want to share Him. You want to tell people about Him. Now I got to tell you I went to the Blues game last night. Any Blues fans? No? None? a couple. Susie, you like the Blues? No? You’re smiling, I thought you might. Now, I usually don’t go out on Saturday night, because Saturday I usually spend the all day 12, 14 hours preparing for today, for Sunday. But long story, scheduling issues, that was the only night we could go. And the Blues won. It was awesome. It was a nine round shootout. I just can’t tell you how exciting it was. And so my daughter and I talked about it all the way home. When we got home, we turned on the TV, they were doing a replay, we wanted to watch it again. We were just there. But see, when you enjoy something, that’s what you do, you talk about it. You share it. Did you ever get a really cool new Bible and you go, hey man, look at my new Bible, isn’t that awesome? You want to show people, are you getting a new car, hey look at my new car. You share what you’re excited about. And that’s what witnessing’s really about. It isn’t, I gotta do that Great Commission thing. You make haste to Jesus and then you want to talk about Jesus. Because as you get to know him, you’re excited about him. So, both of these are evidences of faith. And I think the volitional aspect of faith.
The Religious Affections
Thirdly and lastly, what I call the emotional, although I don’t like the word emotional because I think the words are misused a lot these days. Jonathan Edwards wrote a classic book, it is considered a classic in religious psychology, called The Religious Affections. And during the great awakening, do you know when the great awakening was? Somebody just threw out a date. Okay, we’ll start history classes next week. Church history 101 will begin next week. Okay, Great Awakening, 1730s, 40s, 50s, 60s, right in there.
Second Great Awakening, 1820s, 30s, 40s. Okay, so the Great Awakening. Edwards, American theologian, preacher. Whitefield, British, came over. During the Great Awakening, I mean, there was an awakening. There’s [audio unclear] and there [audio unclear] No, it is a classic book, but you have to be determined to read it, if you know what I mean. But it’s very, what? The religious affections. But it’s very insightful, but it’s a slow read. So I like the word affections, because I think the word emotions is a little bit misused today. But the point being is that true faith embraces the whole man, so it also embraces what we call the emotions or the affections. So when we see the shepherds here, it says that they’re praising and glorifying God. Well praise, or worship of course, is an expression of love, gratitude, admiration, and all of these are expressions of the emotions.
Now the reason [audio unclear] of the object you admire. To admire it and appreciate it is one thing but it’s like you have to share that. You have to acknowledge that. And that completes the joy of the object. And so that’s really what worship is.
A Footnote on Worship
Now a little footnote on worship: worship is not a pep rally. Okay. When we come to worship, what we are doing is worship is an act of declaration. We come together and we declare who God is and what he has done. We profess it, we say it, and in one sense it it has nothing to do with our feelings at the moment. Okay. It is an act of the intellect, it is an act of the will, although maybe we’re feeling low, we might sing a song about joy. Or maybe we’re feeling that we don’t have a lot of faith and we’re singing a song talking about trust in God. But we are declaring what we know is true, and that’s why we declare it. You don’t declare it because you feel like it, you declare it because it’s true. So worship is for declaration. Worship is also for instruction and edification. What do I mean? When you hear the declarations of who God is and what he has done, then this, we are taught, we learn. So, worship is a means of instruction, and then it builds us up in the faith. It edifies us to declare and to even hear these things said. Sometimes during corporate worship, I actually will just sit and pray while other people worship. And I’m taking in what I’m hearing. I’m letting you minister to me by what you are saying when you worship. And it’s a form of instruction, but in a form of edification for me.
Worship is also for communication or fellowship. God communicates His Spirit and His presence to us in our worship. So the act of worship itself really when you think about it is an act of faith and it involves the whole man, the intellectual, the volitional, and the emotional, all of them.
An Invitation to Trust Christ
So let me conclude with this very simple statement. Do you have faith in the Lord Jesus as your Savior? Many of you do, some of you, maybe you don’t know. Do you trust Him? Do you rely upon Him? Have you rolled the burden of your sins upon Him. Have you cast your eternal destiny on Him? The good news of the gospel is that a Savior was born a little bit over 2,000 years ago who is Christ Jesus the Lord, and this is good news for all people. That means everybody in this room and anyone who will hear this message it is good news for them. And every one of us is invited to Jesus Christ as our Savior. Now I read another sermon recently by Jeremy Taylor, talking about faith and he was basically basically trying to answer the question, how much do you really have to believe? And I don’t know about you, but when I got saved, it wasn’t like I walked in this Christian meeting and they gave me a handbook on theology and said, read this, and then you can respond to the gospel invitation. I didn’t know anything other than I was a sinner, Christ was a Savior. I knew that much and I put my hope on him because I believed at that moment that if I died without him I would go to hell but if I died with him I would go to heaven. And that’s all I believed. And I didn’t understand the theanthropic person of Jesus. I didn’t understand the intricacies of the Trinity. I didn’t understand all kinds of things. But I knew I needed a Savior. That much I knew, and I believed Jesus could save me. And so I cast myself upon him. I rolled my sin upon him and I was born again. I was made brand new. And in the twinkling of an eye, transformed. So there was content, but it wasn’t a big, long book of theological propositions. Faith in Jesus as Savior is so simple that every child in this room can understand it. If they choose, they can be saved, even at their very young age, because it’s that simple to understand. You have to understand that you’ve sinned, understand that Christ can and will save you from your sin by his death on the cross, and his resurrection. And then when you ask him to save you, when you receive him, when you call upon him, when you believe in him, when you trust him, he saves you. Your sins are forgiven. You’re given His Holy Spirit and you’re born again. Books and books and books and books have been written on every word I just gave you, but you don’t need to read all those books to be saved. Simple, childlike faith. So I’m going to invite you to trust Christ in just a moment, but I want to say a final word to you, seasoned saints, even if you’re not a senior citizen. You never stop living by faith. It’s not as if you get to a point in your Christian life where all of a sudden you don’t live by faith. As you receive the Lord Jesus, so walk in Him. How did you receive Him? You received Him by faith. How do you walk in Him? You walk by faith. And our faith ought to be growing more and more and more as we learn more and more. But man, we gotta be so careful. And one thing the Lord’s impressed upon me recently is, you know, remember the story of the garden and there were many trees but there are two trees that were talked about. What were those two trees? The tree of life, right? And the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And which one did they eat? Knowledge of good and evil and they fell. And they had the tree of life right there. And sometimes I, I think we do the same thing today, even Christians. We substitute knowledge for life. Just kind of learn a little more. Just kind of study a little more. Now listen, go in my office, it’s a virtual library, okay, of dense theology. I love learning. But propositions don’t save you in and of themselves. The truth doesn’t save in and of itself. That truth must be quickened to you by the life of God or it doesn’t change you. That’s why a non-Christian can hear the same truths that a Christian hears, but the Christian’s changed and the non-Christian isn’t. It’s the same truth. Wasn’t the truth powerful? Doesn’t the truth change us? Well, yes, but not in and of itself. If the Spirit doesn’t apply that scripture to us or that truth to us, it doesn’t change us. We can be ever learning, but never coming to the knowledge of the truth in our experience. So my exhortation to us is to grow in faith. But when I say grow in faith, yes, you need to grow in knowledge. But as Peter said, grow in knowledge and in grace, in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not just the knowledge, not just the grace, the knowledge and the grace. So we need to be reminding ourselves of the necessity of continually walking in faith no matter how much we know or how much we think we know. Walk by faith, which means to truly trust in the Lord on a personal level in every area of our lives. Amen?
Closing Prayer
Let’s stand together and pray. Bow our heads for a moment. The good news of the gospel that God Himself would become a man, [audio unclear] become like one of us, so that we could be forgiven, we could enter into communion with Him, that we could know Him, and that someday when we pass, we will spend eternity with Him.
Is Jesus your Savior? If not, I invite you to call upon Him today. He that confesses with his mouth that Jesus is Lord and believes in his heart will be saved. Call upon the Lord, you will be saved. All those who call upon the Lord will not be ashamed. Whether you’re five, whether you’re ninety-five, it doesn’t matter. Today can be the day of salvation for you. Dear Lord, grant those here that may not know you the spirit of faith they might believe and experience the blessedness, the glad tidings of great joy that we have a Savior in Jesus. We pray in his name.