You In Christ and Christ in You
Mike Doyle · Nov 22, 2009
You in Christ & Christ in You, No. 47
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492614812427

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Since we've been sort of moving really slow through the through this paper that Chafer or that Newell put out, I was thinking that. But I think better of it. I think we'd almost finished the questions we had gotten, I think, to 13 or 14. And what would you say is the cause of discouragement? Thinking we can do it ourselves? OK. Could you could you call it down to one word? And if you could, if you could, what would the word be? Unbelief. Isn't that interesting?

Discouragement in every case has to find its source and unbelief because When you begin to understand the grace that you live under, what can you possibly be discouraged about? You have to either be ignorant of the facts or you have to purposely deny the facts. When you study the Word of God, and even if you do it from a, and I don't mean self-centered standpoint, but do it from what's in it for me, which is okay, you discover that God has a purpose and plan to do nothing but bless you. That's all he has in mind. And as you discover that, your thinking starts to line up with his thinking. Is that okay? So, he says to be proud is to be blind, for we have no standing before God and ourselves. Is that right? That's right, we don't. We have no standing before God.

The common viewpoint is that God has given me a standing. Has he? Has he given it to you? Let me give you my cell phone. Now I don't have it, now you have it. I don't want it. But here's my standing. I'm going to give it to you. Is that what I have? You're talking about your state. My standing. I'm talking about my position. What do I mean? It's real subtle right here. I have no standing in myself. No problem. And God didn't give me a standing. What did he do?

He put me in Christ and his standing is my standing. You see the difference? And that really, it sounds like we're dancing around with words, but we're not, because the deal with us is that every single privilege that Christ enjoys with the Father, we have, because we're in Him. So the key is to understand, as best you can, what it means to be in Christ. And what's cool about that is that it never changes. It will never change, no matter how you think about it. No matter what you do, it won't ever change.

Because it wasn't your program to start with. It was His. So where does the lack of divine blessing have its cause? Same answer. Unbelief. So how does this square with question 6 above? Look at question 6. Question six said, why doesn't failure of devotion cause a withdrawal of grace? Remember the answer to that? Because it's an unchangeable whole, it's unvariable. It's unvariable, it just can't change.

Newell's answer was, as to my and your past life, it doesn't exist before God anymore. You've got to take that one on faith. He died at the cross and Christ is his life. You and I were crucified at the cross and we are resurrected with Christ and now he is our life. And God knew all of the human exigencies before the cross. His action was independent of them and not dependent on them. So that's why If you aren't devoted to God, you don't get withdrawn from grace. Now, this question is, how does this square with the question in question six?

Where does the lack of divine blessing come from? Is there ever a lack of divine blessing? Okay, so what's, why, does it sound like I'm asking... You feel like you have a lack. There you go. I am never outside the realm of divine blessing from my position. But I certainly can be outside of it in my condition. You okay with that? Or is it like lack of enjoyment of divine love? There you go. That's a better way to look at it. Roger told me that. I wrote down the love of God and the grace of God is in one's position and it's on all the time. However, if one refuses to believe and consent to be blessed, then they'll not be able to appropriate the grace and blessing. Faith is the entrance to every blessing by God. Addition to faith destroys faith.

Romans 4.4, now unto him that works is a reward not reckoned of grace but of debt. If you're going to work, then you're going to have to go to God and say you owe me. Guess what? That simple mindset takes you out of the realm of grace. What scripture is that one?

Romans 4.4. For a moment could you talk about, that's the same take like face healer, the reason you're not whole, the reason you're sick, the reason whatever is because you don't bleed. Okay. What page are you on? I'm on page 5, question 14. My page, we're on question 14, 29. No it's not 28. It's 28. It's 2814.

I'm sorry, once I make a mistake, it's a good thing the Lord has forgotten my sins, because I can't forget them, because you won't let me. Everybody understand Donna's question? Donna's question is, faith healers will tell you that The reason you didn't get healed was because your faith wasn't strong enough.

Now, I think I can answer a question with a question. When you believe, is the power in what you believe or in the fact that you do believe? If I believe in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, Where's the value? In my faith or in what he did? That's the first part of the answer. The second part of the answer is this, that I am to live by faith. And God, from a positional standpoint, has blessed me with every spiritual blessing.

Now, in this case, I don't think it's a matter of strong or weak faith. I think it's a matter of whether you believe him or not, about what he specifically has said. What you find with faith healers is that they cannot demonstrate from the Word of God accurately what you should believe. Paul never said If you believe strong enough, you'll be physically healed. As a matter of fact, he's the poster child for going to the Lord about infirmity and not getting a positive response. If I was Paul, I'd get really nervous about going to the next town. The last town, they'd beat me up. But didn't Jesus say, your faith has made you whole? Your faith has made you whole? What does faith do? What does faith do? In the role of our life and walk, what does faith avail for us?

It just opens the door. You understand that? I think it's important to understand that faith is a non-meritorious act. I'm not a contributor. But God says, if you believe me, then the flood will come. and he's not holding back and waiting for your contribution. What faith does is you ascribe to God validity in what he's telling you. Anybody want to add to that? Did that answer the question? You okay with that? Because that's a real big issue.

We may not be charismatics and faith healers, but we're always looking at God saying, what do I need to do now? Isn't the faith healer's premise based upon the fact that you're sick or you've got some problem because you sinned? Because I sinned. And God's punishing you because you sinned. That's right.

And that whole premise is out the window. Or, because I didn't do certain things, that he's not blessing me. I didn't walk around the building seven times. So the walls are going to stay up. The whole premise is man-centered rather than Christ-centered. See that?

Because when Ephesians tells us that we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, you have to decide where are those blessings? And what kind are they? They're spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. He didn't say, I'm going to bless you with all earthly blessings in Arvada. He didn't say that. It's spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. And if you don't do this, then I'll curse you.

So, okay. Great question. What does that tell you of the system that they lived under? Law system, right? Because that's what law is. If you do this, If you obey me, if you respond, I will bless you. If you don't, I will curse you. Now we live under grace. Change the phraseology. Because I have blessed you, you will do. You see that? It's not if. The if is gone. Because I have already blessed you, you will respond in a manner that's consistent with the blessing I've given you. See that? That's the difference.

And that's really important because our old man and our psyche and our world tells us exactly what you described. I have got to figure out what God wants from me so that he'll bless me. That's the same thing with the charismatic face. I have got to figure out. And it's amazing how many even really solid people have ifs in their program.

Louis Sperry Chaffer, my man. says in his book, I forget the name of the book, that if you want to walk in the Spirit, you have to confess all known sin. What do you think about that one? Sounds good, doesn't it? The problem is that it puts the onus on you. I get it for you. Long time. I don't know. But I remember reading that and thinking, what?

So, I mean, if he can do that, you better keep your eye on me, because I'm sure I've laid a lot of law on you. Mike, doesn't a lot of it come from, like they said, whenever those things come up, 1 Corinthians 11, 29 and 30, for he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason, many among you are weak and sick and numb or sleep. Isn't that where a lot of this comes from?

Do you understand where he's... Where he's coming from is right below where we, when we quote the Lord's table, this is right below that, that we are to judge ourselves, right? What does that judgment mean? When that word says we are to judge ourselves, what are we supposed to do? Get out the whips? What is, in that case, what does the word judgment mean, or judge? I think you're supposed to be aware of whether you're functioning as the son that you are. If you're not, then you confess.

So what does God do? This is one of the most gracious passages in all of Paul's epistles. You know why? Because if you don't judge yourself, what's God going to do? He's going to judge you. Why? So you don't get condemned with the world. Is that gracious? That's really cool, I think. And what do we do?

We walk around thinking, no, I don't want the Lord to be judging me. He's going to get the big stick up and whack me with it. No. I'm thankful for the fact that if I'm merely going on my day and I'm not judging, that He's going to step in and do it. I think to me it's a kind of objective evaluation of myself. That's pretty good. You don't want to spend a lot of time there, but yeah.

And it leads to praise and gratefulness that He did what He did. And the Spirit of God will do that. I mean, He does it to me all the time. You know, He goes, hey big fella, you know, this is not too cool. Oh yeah. I didn't understand. Or I did understand and I was ignoring you.

So, I mean, the Spirit of God, we are temples of the Holy Spirit, He's not going anywhere, He lives within us, and He has a specific job, and that's to reveal Christ to the believer. If you're not in such a condition to have Him revealed, then He will do the judging and restore you so that you can. Wherever you go, whatever you do, the Spirit of God, the God of the universe is resident within you. And He's not dependent on you to get your act together. That's why he's there.

See? Okay? Is that alright, Mark? When you hear the scripture, it talks about why you call me Lord, Lord. You don't do what I tell you to do. They claim that they cast out demons and all that stuff, he said. In your name? In your name. He said, you know what, I'd never do you. Isn't that interesting.

Where does that all fit in? Yeah, do you understand what the scripture is talking about? You cast out demons in my name at the end and he will say, well, that's all well and good, but I didn't know you. So the criteria is what? Not casting out demons, not doing all this other stuff. What's the criteria? Oh wow. That's a whole other thing. How do you know him? By believing him. By faith. That's how you know. So, you know, all of the doers who aren't knowers are going to be in big trouble. You see that? They're not believers. They're not. Well, that's right. They're doers, not believers. They're not believers. They're not Christians. Sure.

So, look at the value that the Lord puts on knowing him. Because he says earlier in John, he said, what did he say eternal life was? That you might know me and the one who sent me. That's what eternal life is. That's cool. Okay. 15. From where does real devotion and worship to God arise from? Explain. Does it arise from man's will to show it? Now, we're going upstairs to have a worship service, what do you think? Probably ought to do that, huh? Where does real devotion and worship come from? What does worship mean, by the way? Anybody know what that word means? You say, well, I'm going to go up there and we're going to crank up the music and we're going to worship God. What does worship mean? comes from the word worth. Worth, worth. Okay? That's right. So, expand it. Worthy. And what makes him worthy to me? And to you? Does he have to prove himself to me? He doesn't have to, but he does, see? And that's what makes him worthy.

Well, again, you start reading through Paul's epistles and you start seeing all this blessing, you can't help but respond. and worship Him. It isn't a matter of we're going to get a bunch of praise songs and worship songs and we're going to have a worship service. Why would you do that? Because you think you've got to do something because maybe God wants to be worshipped. So I've got to get busy and do that.

No, that's a law system. Do you understand that? The worship comes from His action towards me, His grace towards me and my response to it. So who's the initiator? He is. But I have to tell you, if I don't read the Word of God, I can go into any church and go to a worship service, and I might as well have gone to the 11 o'clock NFL game. Big deal.

But when you see the grace of God coming towards you, and you begin to understand it because the Spirit is showing you, you can't help but worship God. Because what He's doing is over the top. It's way more than you ever expected. Newell says, real devotion to God arises not from man's will to show it, but from the discovery that blessing has been received from God while we were yet unworthy and undevoted. To preach devotion first and blessing second is to reverse God's order and preach law not grace. The law made man's blessing depend on devotion. Grace confers undeserved, unconditional blessing. Our devotion may follow, but does not always do so in proper measure.

That's sort of a convicting sentence, isn't it? But that's the way it is. That's the way grace functions. So, observations. Renunciation of merit is a prerequisite for living by grace. There's something for you to do. How about that? The renunciation of merit. Coming to the realization that I can't earn any of this, so I'm not even going to try. Oh, you lazy Christian, you. Admission of demerit is a prerequisite for living by grace. In other words, admit that you're not worthy.

Oh boy, the psychologists would have fun with that, wouldn't they? Grace is for the glory of God and not for the glory of man. You see how that fits? When you begin to receive the grace of God and you respond worshipfully, who gets the glory in the deal? He does. How then should we live? For the glory of God. See how that equation works? We should live for the glory of God, but you've got to have the prerequisites in there. The word blessed in 7 and 8 means to happiness or to be happy. How do you have happiness? Only those who cast themselves on the grace of God can ever know true happiness. We lose our happiness whenever we think about ourselves.

Perhaps I don't believe enough, but I cast myself on grace. You know, especially we Americans, we are taught from the time our feet hit the ground that we're Americans. And we can go out and, like Courtney likes to say, slay the dragons. And then the Lord saves us along the way and then we get blessed to the point where we begin to enter in and understand grace.

It goes totally against everything we are, doesn't it? Americans are not dependent people. I mean, they're trying to make us dependent, but we're not dependent people. We're empire builders and pioneers and entrepreneurs and all of this other stuff. But then the grace of God, does the grace of God go against what we should be as Americans? What do you think? Oh, it got quiet, didn't it?

The grace is always there. Grace is always there. So how do you live as a good American under grace? It's never like to the rich man. Kind of does. The issue is this. Under grace I'm a heavenly citizen. I belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm here for His purposes. I'm not from here. I live totally under grace and I'm an ambassador of the reconciliation. I'm here to demonstrate to the world that God took care of the sin issue and that His grace is abounding and that all you have to do is believe. And I do that mostly by the way I live, and sometimes by what I say.

Okay? Guess what? We're going to the next lesson, 29. Now, 29, I know I gave you an awful lot of stuff at the beginning, but I did it on purpose because I think that the first two questions really point up position, condition, grace, and response to grace. So what I'd like to do is have somebody read Ephesians 1, 1-14 and just listen about, as I said in the question, and read Ephesians 1, 1-14 to be reminded of our spiritual wealth in Christ. I've highlighted them. Want me to read it and then I'll emphasize it? Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God to the saints That's one of those spiritual wealthy things you have.

That are an emphasis and who are faithful in Christ Jesus. Emphasis on the word in. Grace to you and peace, grace and peace to from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. spiritual wealth.

Just as he chose us, spiritual wealth, in him before the foundations of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love, spiritual wealth, holy and blameless before him in love. He predestinated us, spiritual wealth, to adoption as sons, spiritual wealth. through Christ Jesus unto himself according to the kind intention of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace which spiritual wealth he freely bestowed on us in the beloved in him emphasis on the word in we have spiritual wealth redemption through his blood the forgiveness spiritual wealth of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. He made known to us the mystery of His will, spiritual wealth, according to His kind intention which He proposed in Him. with a view to the administration suitable to the fullness of times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on the earth in Him. Also, spiritual wealth, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestinated according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ, spiritual wealth, would be the praise of His glory, spiritual wealth, in Him. You also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, salvation, spiritual wealth, having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, spiritual wealth, who has given us a pledge of our inheritance, spiritual wealth, with a view to the redemption of God's own purpose to the praise of His glory."

Now, I don't know how many things are there, probably 20 or 25. Not a bad list. So what I ask you to do is to review the things in that, and you could take that passage out every day and go through those things and just be overwhelmed by what God says He's already done. Okay?

Then take to your heart Paul's prayer 15-23 which is based upon the above revelation. So what does Paul do? He lays out the premise and lays out the blessing but he recognizes that just because he's laid it out there doesn't mean they get it. So what does he do?

He says, for this reason I too, having heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, I've heard about your faith, which exists among you and the love for all saints, I don't cease giving thanks for you while making mention of you in my prayers. Now listen to what he asked God to do. And by the way, when I say to you in the morning, what can we pray for? This is really how we should be praying. that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him." Wow. Isn't that something? I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of this calling. What are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints? And what is the surpassing greatness of his power towards us who believe?

Wow! I mean, imagine if God said, OK, I think I'll do that. And he's going to do it to you right now. You would go right off the ceiling. Do you understand that? Based on what he just said is true, now he's saying, Father, I pray that you open up their understanding, that they would see all of this, that they would enter into it conditionally, that it would be what they are. in a conditional world. What a cool prayer.

These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might, not yours, His, which He brought about in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places. What Paul is saying is that the power of God to show you these things and to implement them in your life is no less than the power it took to raise Christ from the dead. Never been a greater demonstration of God's power ever, even in the creation. It took more power to raise Christ from the dead than it did to create the world. And he's saying let's implement that power in showing you the riches you have in Christ.

Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion in every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that to come. Do you realize that that's where you are? And we're constantly fooling around with, we think these guys are picking on us, and the Lord says, no, wait a minute. When I raise Christ from the dead, because you're in Him, He is seated in the heavenlies, He's above all rule, all authority, all power, all dominion, all, and every name in His name, not only in this age, but that to come, and I'm in Him. Pretty good place to be.

And He put all things in subjection under His feet. Now watch this last part. and gave him, God gave Christ as head over all things to the church. You understand what he's saying there? He made Christ head of all things and then he gave him to the church in that position.

You see that? That's a really cool thought when you think about it. That the Christ that we are in has been taken by God and been given all things, and then he gave him to us in that position. Pretty cool. And we, which is his body, and obey the way. You and me are the fullness of him who fills all in all.

How cool is that? Do you realize that once we leave this planet, and once the end of this age comes, and he comes to rule and reign in glory, and from that point through the millennial kingdom and out into glory, that God has determined that the manifestation of his glory is going to be through two entities. The first entity is Christ himself. What's the second entity? His body, us. Creatures for all eternity, angels, will look at every one of you and say, there goes the Son of God. because His glory will be manifested through you. And you know what?

It's not dependent on how good you do and how many spiritual push-ups you did this week. It isn't related to that. It's related solely to what He's already done. So, you can spend the rest of your life in these 23 verses and they take the top of my head off. outfits with a defecation.

Would it be appropriate in verse 18 to replace the word hope with either the word certainty or the word reality? You could. The reason that the hope is used there is because the fullness of the manifestation of the glory of God is not yet through you, to you, it's coming.

But it is certain? Oh, there's no question. There's no question, it's certain. Yeah, we do, because we don't put the certainty that should be on the word hope. Hope is an absolute certainty. There's no doubt. You know, we hope the Broncos are going to win today. That has nothing to do with biblical hope.

I'll tell you something I discovered studying for the Wednesday class at our house in Romans, that whenever God in the Old Testament made a promise to Abraham, you would think in the grammar that he would make it in the future tense, wouldn't you? If I said I'm going to give you 40 bucks, the I'm going to give you is in the future tense, right? But in the Old Testament, whenever God made a promise to a person, you know what tense it was in?

It was in the perfect tense. Which means that it's a completed action in the past, with abiding results in the future. When he says, I'm going to do something, it's as though it's already done. What a cool way to do it. That's what hope means here. So it is real. It is real. It's totally real. No, I'm not totally there yet, or whatever you want to say. So, what verb tense, all these things in these first verses here, Eris tense, her perfect tense, but probably Eris tense. And you know what's interesting?

There is so much, so many of these blessings that are already true of us, and we're looking around the corner for something else, because we get wrapped up in the everyday circumstances of, oh, I'm having a 50-50 day. 50-50 day, huh? How about Ephesians 1? That doesn't sound like a 50-50 day to me.

So what's true? What's true in my life? Here comes a decision. Do I believe God or do I believe my circumstances? Which is it? That's really the decision. If you're going to make a decision whether to believe, you're going to believe one of those two things, aren't you? The circumstances or what God says is true of me. Which is it? Sure, but until this is valuable to you, you'll always get stuck in the circumstances.

That's why the prayer. That's why Paul says, Father, open up their understanding. Let them know totally. In 1 Corinthians it's awesome that there's that phrase from the Old Testament that says, that has not entered into the mind of man, the things that God has in store for those who love him. What a wonderful thing. You know what the next phrase is? But God has revealed Him to us. He has? Yeah, He says He has. How come I don't know Him? Because I stopped. That's how come I don't know. I'm waiting for Him to reveal Him. And He says, I already did it. Oh, I didn't get to that part. See? That's what faith does. Faith opens up the door for these incredible blessings that are already yours. And the Spirit of God has been sent to do that. So let's say you get to understand that yourself, that it's not dependent on circumstances. But what about other people? How do you have compassion for other people who are involved in their circumstances?

What do you think? You understand the question? What if you're OK? You're walking, at least to heaven, some understanding, and you're trusting God and the circumstances, but you come in contact with somebody that you're responsible for, or you're involved with, and you're trying to encourage them, and they're not having any of it. What do you do? Is that alright? What do you do? Say, here, let me give you a Bible. You better read this. What do you do?

That's exactly what he did. He spelled it out, not that you're going to sit in front of somebody who doesn't care, but this prayer is very appropriate. This is really an appropriate prayer. Like I said, we should start every class with this prayer. Every class.

The second part, I think, of the answer is that as you and I are conformed to the image of Christ, Like Hal Malloy used to say, we should pray that God would send people to us who would come to us and say, I want to know about that hope that's in you. I see it. Because if I'm going to inspire confidence in you, it can't be me, Mike, that does it. It's got to be the Spirit of God in me who does it. They want to see Christ, not me.

And you don't know. You start checking the fruit, you're out of the loop. The focus is on the Lord Jesus Christ and you have such a heart for Christ and whoever you're dealing with, unless he's your teenage son. No, but it's the same thing. I understand what you're saying. parts that will cause unrest in my heart is when I discover that I'm with somebody who not only doesn't understand, but doesn't care. Especially, and I think Courtney would back me up, when you're a teacher, it's really important to you that you get it. It doesn't matter whether I get it, it matters whether you get it. And so the prayer is the same. This prayer from Paul is an awesome prayer, because that's really the heart. So along that same line, you're really mad, John, and I say to you, yeah, but Mike, you have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly. I'm so astounded. Where am I going?

Yeah, that's right. Well, I mean, actually, that's the right thing to say. You know, I think the other, Holly, the thing I finally have peace about, it's not up to you. It relaxes me. It's really not. You know, that's for me, the doer. You know, I got to go out and do this. God doesn't need me. He can use me. But it's not up to me.

And I think, you know, the feeling that you have, It's just, you know, again, I think it's the one where, as you become conformed to Christ, he'll bring people to you, he'll enlighten you. He's the one that does it. And the more you, for me, and I speak for myself, the more responsibility. The gut goes no it's not. And that's where I think you just relax.

Yeah and I mean even too like being compassionate for people who are going through tough circumstances. Yeah. You feel bad for them but if it's all part of the plan how can you feel real bad because it's part of the plan. So you say I'm sorry that you're Well, you think about that. There's a reaction, I think, of people in those kinds of circumstances that you run into.

You can get in the pity mode that they're in, or if you go at it from the perspective that, not that you verbalize this, but, you know, there is no such thing as a tragedy for a believer. You know, God does work all things together for good, and that's the attitude you have, not that you have to verbalize it all the time. But it's positive. It's not this is a tragedy, because in a Christian's life, Hal was right, there's no such thing as a tragedy in a believer's life. There can't be. If he says to me that I work all things together for good, for you, to conform you to Christ, then pick a circumstance that's happened in your life and see if God was kidding. He's not kidding. Now if you're dealing with a non-believer, The issue is that the hope that's in you and the frame of reference that you have, that's what your hope is, is that they see Him. That there isn't anything that God can't do.

Is that the first one? Is that okay? I was thinking too about our fellowship, how wonderful it is that there's so many that will walk with you, you know, that'll walk by your side as you go through some of those things. That's right. There are a lot of circumstances. Yeah, that's really right. And that's really important.

That's where you see it working out in shoe leather when you're, you know, you're in what look like dire circumstances and people come alongside you and they walk with you. They don't try to fix it. They walk with you. That's the body. Sure. When you're gone, you miss that. Yeah, you do. You know, it's just because it's people who, you know, are in Christ with you. Yeah. Or the body. And it's not a contrived. It's not a do it because we had a meeting. You said you're supposed to do this. I have two lady friends. Yeah.

One of them dumped her recently for an airline stewardess. He met her with the kids and a bunch of foster kids. And another one whose husband is deep into pornography and he's unwell. She has made the commitment to stay with him. And when I talk with both of them, it's really hard. I have to really say, OK Lord. And are these two ladies believers? I'm sorry. Are these two ladies believers? They're both believers. And they're probably not going to come ever to Holly Hills as far as I can see in the future.

Especially the one that's committed to stay with her husband because he needs her so right now in spite of what he's doing. What do I give to her is what I say to the Lord. I need you to give me what she needs. And remind both of them as Christians that God rewards us when we look to Him by giving us peace and joy and the comfort we need that enables us and strengthens us as believers to do what we have to do. The thing is we have to get into the Word. There you go. There's the answer. ...feeding our soul and try to encourage them to do that.

But dealing with an unbeliever, I find that more difficult. Oh, where are you going with an unbeliever? All I can do is say, I have found that God has given me what I needed here and here, and he has restored my joy. And they look sometimes at me and say, yeah, but he was so mean to you. Oh yeah, really. And I can't make them see the goodness of God there. That's a hard thing for me. Yeah, and you can't. I mean, you can't make them see the goodness. Because, like Courtney says, it's not your job.

Yeah, I mean, I guess what I'm saying is, I can go and do the work for them, but they need something practical right now, this moment, to go back and face their life. Well, you know what's interesting? And you don't often get to see this, but it's like, before you solicited the Lord's help in that deal, he was already working. And if the truth be known, in most of those cases, I think, it's my opinion, that they have already turned Him down. That He has come to them with the grace, maybe through you, and they don't want it. They want their solution. And that happens a lot.

Because I know at the end, when we all stand, not us, but when all of the world who are not in Christ stand at the Great White Throne Judgment, there's not going to be a single human being there who says to God, One, I want another chance. Or two, I didn't get a fair shake. They're going to look at Christ, and they're going to say, I didn't want you then, and I don't want you now, where's the door? So it's interesting that we empathize with people in their misery, but a lot of times the answer to their misery is sitting right in their lap, and they won't take it. Because they either don't believe it's the answer, or whatever.

And you can say, well, anecdotally, look at me. I've decided, and Hal used to do this all the time, he'd say, let's go see what the Word of God has to say about it. And let the Word of God do the talking and not me. Because the Word of God has got real power and I may or may not have any. You see that? But you can go to the Word of God and they don't want to go there. You can't do anything about that. You live focused on Christ. And hopefully they'll see Christ in you and want Him.

That's my answer. I know the buzzer's going to ring. So I guess next week you can just finish. I've got a set of questions for what was going to be next week. I'll leave them with you. You can hand them out. Because I won't be here next week. Okay. Let's close.

Father how we thank you for your grace but mostly we thank you for the person of the Lord Jesus Christ who is our very life and as Paul's prayer said in Ephesians that our eyes might be opened and our understanding would be such that we could behold his glory and recognize increasingly on a daily basis the grace and the blessings that we have in him. We thank you Father we pray in his precious name. Amen.