(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

law on Saturday so that's where we're going to be in Phoenix and then headed back this week so Leslie went this afternoon with the trailer to pick up some stuff so that's what's going on with with our family and that's what's going to be happening next week here for service but I'll be back then for the following Wednesday we'll be here for this Wednesday and we'll be here for the following Wednesday so it's just a Sunday that I'm not going to be here so many opportunities are listed there as well as the Salvations and the Baptisms for the month as well as for the year so let's tally up the soul winning from today if you had any Salvations today just slip your hand up real quick we'll get those counted up one over here one over here all right oh brother yeah I didn't see that thanks for pointing that out so that makes a total of four for the day very good did I miss anybody so I saw this I think that's it cool all right very good keep up the good work preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ we got the offering totals received through the month of June down there at the bottom of the page prayer requests we went over the updates this morning please continue to pray for for everyone on our list here some people definitely have very serious problems health issues going on please pray for them and of course continue to pray for all the ladies who are with child and expecting and then down there at the bottom of the page pray for that Baptist Church and you know they've been around have been meeting for a few years already but now they're gonna be just completely independent and being commended to the Lord and now Pastor Wiebe is is taking the the role of the bishop there so just pray that God will bless that church and help them to grow and reach the people and in Winnipeg and in Canada and that God also just bless them and allow them to be able to to serve him and preach the word and do everything they need to do up there because you know it's it's not necessarily a communist country but it's seems to be going that way so pray that pray that God will bless all their efforts there is a good group of people in Canada I think they're spread abroad in various areas but definitely some very very faithful brothers and sisters in Christ up there so it was a blessing to go up and see them so please please pray for their the church plant that's up there the new church that's that's beginning as a brand new church on the next page June challenge of course is to give attempt to give the gospel to one person every single day of the month now I've had I've had this question come up recently in regards to like children that want to participate in the soul winning challenge and I'm always more lenient with the kids that want to do these things in general so always just ask anyways if your kids want to do something don't just shut them down but here's what what I've decided on because I still want everyone to be challenged I want kids to be challenged too right and and because I've been doing this particular challenge for so long way back in the day and my kids that we've wanted to complete this what I what I had them do is they at least have to approach somebody so like if you're going to the door they have to introduce themselves at least right to do something like if they don't ever talk and maybe they're not capable of giving the gospel yet or something but they want to participate and they want to try to do this not just being a silent partner but actually you know knocking on the door and introducing themselves and saying hey my mom or my dad wants to you know show you how to be saved or something you know something to that effect that's great and so they could do anything like that with one person right every day then that's that they'll they'll satisfy the the challenge for that as well so just keep that in mind and any of the challenges if I don't ever specify like what the kids need to do feel free to ask me about it because I love that there are kids that want to do these challenges I think it's awesome and I want to encourage them to do that and sometimes it'll just be the same requirements but sometimes I will do other things like the Bible memory we don't it's not quite as extensive it's not it's not as much verses that they have to memorize will be a smaller portion or something like that so always feel free to ask so but this is a great challenge hopefully who's trying to do this even if you've missed a day or two like who's still just you know I'm dedicated to working on this amen great love to see it that's good that's awesome and this is also why you're going to notice like every month of June we have a tendency to get a lot more salvations as well because of that yes sir no it's it's an attempt I mean you're you're it's it's no different really than someone just completely rejecting you I mean I wasn't even able to get a verse out in Canada like I was literally just trying like like people were just shutting you down before I could even like open up my mouth practically but the whole point is to is to think about like I need to try to give the gospel someone and then attempt to do it so if they don't speak your language you did attempt to give the gospel to someone there's a person there and you did it now the only thing that I say doesn't count is if you're knocking doors and nobody comes to the door and have some type of contact with a person okay that's if they don't speak the language okay if they you know if they just completely reject you fine it's an attempt being made right so that's that's kind of what how we how we look at that so yeah no worries no worries on that front for meeting the goal and look I get it you're not always gonna be giving the gospel to someone every day but you're gonna attempt to right and some people like to take this farther and go and look I'm all for that and when I have a lot of you know a little bit more time I try to do the same thing I'm not satisfied just approaching someone that just shuts me down right away you know but it but it is satisfactory for this for the challenge so very good all right the six year anniversary is coming up it's gonna be here June 23rd a couple weeks away we're gonna have a blast a lot of fun with that so hopefully you can you're gonna be here we'll celebrate remember that there's gonna be the the watersides and stuff and watersides is good for adults too so it's not just for the kids just saying okay you want to go down there bring a suit whatever it's it's a lot of fun I went on it last year they're pretty cool so yeah and I'm gonna you know if you're interested in helping out at all just come talk to me after church at some point or over the week or something there's just a few minor things that would be nice if we had some help with for example maybe someone operating like the the snow cone machine and helping kids out so it doesn't just turn into a total disaster with syrup all over the place or like the popcorn machine or helping to with some of the preparation the food and definitely with with watching the kids out back so we have enough supervision going on back there so those are the types of things that would just be really helpful so anyone who's interested in in wanting to to help with that in addition to just kind of keeping an eye on like the garbage is getting filled up when we have these events and there's a lot of stuff going on so just let me know if you want to help with that and and I appreciate that Greenville Church plant details are all listed there of course there's the correction to the service times it's Thursday not Wednesday so the midweek service is on Thursday at seven o'clock and then Pastor Anderson of course is going to be here on July 5th so he'll be preaching for the very first time that that will be gathering together as a church at that facility on Friday July 5th and we will also be helping people out with hotels so if you don't need a hotel if you really don't need one it's very helpful for the church to not have to do too much of this but we want you to be there I want you to be there for the supporting if you want to come out that Friday night I get it if you got especially got a really long drive and then you want to come back in the morning for the soul winning and stuff just let me know okay well I have no problems booking hotels and ask me sooner rather than later because I'm gonna see I think there's a lot of interest for this so I'm gonna try to see if we can maybe block off get like a hotel block on like a floor or something and get maybe some discounted rates on that too so if I already know in advance oh yeah I'm gonna need like 10 or 15 or 20 rooms or something like that then cool right but if you if you don't need it and you don't think like you know it's not that big of a deal I could just go and and drive up there and drive home it's not a problem then then great that's helpful with our expenses but like I said user discretion ask me and and you know if you if you if you want to have a room and what and we'll help you out so and that goes for both nights to the Friday night and Saturday night either or both whatever whatever you plan on doing let me know because it's all day soul winning it's Friday night and it's Sunday day so I am just gonna ask that some people come to church here on Sunday let's have some I know it's exciting I want to do a great push there but consider that it's more than just the opening service that's gonna be helpful for people to be up there if you want to go and visit the church and just kind of check it out and be there for a service and go soul winning and stuff it is helpful the more people that are in church like when new when visitors show up when new people show up it just that much more comfortable and and just looks like a much more established church which it pretty much is because it's so many people that have just been established here are going to be at that at that church anyways but it is a blessing and it is a help to go up there but try to just think about that if you don't make it on the first Sunday like well I could go up there another week whether it be a midweek or Sunday or something especially mid weeks if you can make it up on a midweek I mean we don't have a lot of people on midweek service if you want to go up and help them out there then then that would be great so alright enough with the church plan oh and by the way there is like construction is nearing completion the demo is done it looks great I got some pictures there's still some more work that needs to be done but like there were some walls that we took a lot of walls down opened up the space tremendously so it looks good I'm excited I think we could fit probably a lot of people into that building so probably more people than we have chairs for at this point we'll figure out those logistics as well before we open so it's everything's just going really good so appreciate the prayers too don't forget to pray for that for that plant as we're still looking to open up here very soon Bible memory passage continuing announcements got a couple weeks left for Hebrews chapter 11 and then down at the bottom of the page of course Zara had a birthday this morning we sung to her and that is about it for the announcement so I will turn the service over to brother will who can lead us in our next song while the rest of the church the book of first John first John chapter five Follow along silently as you read. The Bible reads, Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ, not by water only, but by water and blood, and it is the spirit that bears witness, because the spirit is truth. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood, and these three agree in one. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. For this is the witness of God, which he hath testified of his Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that have the Son have life, and he that have not the Son of God have not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that you have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hearth us, and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death. I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not unto death. We know that whosoever is born of God, sin is not. But he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. And we know that the Son of God is come and have given us an understanding that we may know him that is true. And we are in him that is true, even in his son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for the whole entire Bible. We thank you for all the souls that have been saved recently. We thank you for the future souls that will be saved. And God, we thank you for the church plant. We thank you for all the successes and all the things we have in the future to come. And God, we thank you for past diversions. May you fill in with your spirit. Allow for him to preach your boldness. Allow for our ears to be attended to the words that we've spoken today. God, we praise you and thank you for everything you said is in Jesus name. Amen. All right, keep put a bookmark in first John chapter five. We're gonna come right back to it and we're gonna go back to Romans chapter eight. So the sermon is actually deriving from Romans eight. We just we read all of Romans eight this morning, so I didn't want to read through the whole chapter again since we did this morning. But we are gonna focus a little bit more on the latter half of Romans eight. And this morning we started off with the first half of Romans eight and then went back to Romans seven. And I taught through a lot of different things with that. But this evening there's actually a really famous verse that I want to preach on. I can't recall if I've ever even really preached on this verse or not in the past. So I thought it'd be a good idea to cover it tonight. I don't anticipate this to be a very long sermon. But of course, every time I say that it ends up being like some really, really long sermon. But as I have said in the past, I promise like I have very few notes. So we'll see. I'm gonna let the spirit lead. And if it ends up being long, you can't blame me. Okay. If you to kiss falls out of a window, I'm sorry. All right, but so the verse I want to I want to preach I know what we're gonna cover is Romans 828. So look down at Romans 828. The Bible says, And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are the called according to his purpose. And this is this is a really encouraging uplifting verse. This is awesome. It's great. And I want to just cover that, you know, this morning, I was kind of given the warning about, hey, we need to walk in the spirit and not in the flesh. And we need to have a fear of God and we need to understand, you know, to be currently minded as death and like, it wasn't the most positive sermon, but it was important. But this evening, I really do want to cover this because, because if you think about it, you know, at least fundamentalists like us, we really do care about every word of God, we really do want to have a good fear of God, we want we want to walk our life and be real careful with what we do. And, and, and, you know, not just be flippant with the Word of God and just think, Oh, well, it's no big deal, whatever, we treat it seriously. But at the same time, it's really important to receive and to know the good promises that God gives us right into into not just be like, so nervous and anxious or something about like, just doing any misstep or anything wrong. Like, you know, kids that grow up in an abusive household, with a dad that just like loses it. And like the kids have to like walk on eggshells, because they're worried that like, if you make one peep or one noise are going to get a backhand or something. That's not God the Father. Now, I preach that like, hey, look, God's not mocked, we need to, you know, we need to be mindful, we need to be respectful, of course we do. But God is loving and merciful. God really does love us and wants us to have a joyful life and is not some abusive stepfather or something that like, is just is just out to hurt us. Right. And I'm not saying anyone has that mindset. But if we focus too much in any one area, and we focus too much on like the, you know, the hard preaching and sin, you might end up getting an imbalanced view of just thinking like, Oh, man, like, I can't do anything without thinking like, God is going to rain, you know, cloud up and rain down on me, and it's just going to be horrible. Well, yeah, he will, if you just, you know, just go off into sin. But there's plenty of good promises in Scripture. And this is one of them. All things look, we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called, according to his purpose. And you know, that's good to know, especially in the middle of hard times in the middle of problems that Oh, yeah, remember, remember that verse? I don't know how this could possibly work out to be good. But all things, all things, all things work together for good to them that love God. Now, before I continue with all this good, positive preaching on all things work together for good, there is a condition there that says, to them that love God. And sometimes verses like this gets preached too broadly, where everyone's just giving themselves a pat on the back of like, as if this is just for all believers. No, all things don't work together for good for every single believer. Because not every single believer really loves God. And that's just a fact. Okay. And this is a great promise, a great statement, a great truth. But hey, if you love this verse, make sure it applies to you. Right? Now, this is why we started off in first john chapter five. Because I don't know, I do. Hey, I want all things to work together for good for me in my life. Like I just want whatever bad things happen, whatever, whatever road I take, whatever things come across my path, I want to know that all things are still going to work out for good. That what a great peace of mind to have. I want to have that. Okay, well, to them that love God, look at first john chapter five, again, keep your place in Roman date, we're going to go back to first john chapter five, we start reading verse number one, the Bible reads whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. Amen. That's how you're saying that's how you become a child of God, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved and everyone that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. So right there, it's making a statement that if you love God, then you will love other believers, other brethren in Christ. Because if you love God, then you are going to love your brothers and sisters in Christ. But what it's going to teach us here in a minute, we're going to see is that like, well, okay, but if you don't love your brothers and sisters in Christ, then that's like evidence that you don't really love God. Because if you did love God, you'd love your brothers and sisters in Christ. And I'm not going to go too deep into that there's plenty of verses that discusses but we're just going to look here like verse number two. By this, we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. So the two go hand in hand, you know, loving God and loving the brethren, right? It's kind of like if you're not loving the brother, you're not loving God. If you're not loving God, you're not loving the brethren. You see what I mean? But verse three is what I really want to just hone in on in this passage. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous. So, again, you know, we, you know, fundamentalists, we call it all your legalistic and all this other stuff, and you're looking at the law. It's funny because we're the most free as far as salvation is concerned. Most free. It has nothing to do with the law, like nothing at all to do with the law. Nothing. It's a free gift. You just get saved. Put your trust in Jesus. He died for you. He loves you. That's it. But then after say, Hey, let's look to the law of God. The law is good. The law is righteous. We ought to be, we ought to be respecting our Heavenly Father. We ought to be looking to his word. We ought to be letting it guide our path. We ought to be, you know, not sinning as much as we can and have that respect and actually treat it that like, Hey, thank you Lord for saving me because there's no way I could, I could follow all of this law and rely on that to my goodness to be saved. I can't. But I do love you and you did make these commandments and I'm going to try my best to keep your commandments because that's what you want me to do. I mean, is anyone that thinks that God doesn't want us following his law? That's silly, right? Well, if sin is a transgression of the law, I mean, that's what does God just want us all sinning? God forbid, right? Well, if we want to apply a verse like Romans 828 to ourselves, though, that says, all things work together for good to them that love God. Just understand that when the Bible's talking about loving God there, it's not just talking about emotion. It's not just something when you play your CCM on your radio that like you get this funny feeling in your chest that like, Oh, I love God so much that like that's what it's talking about. Because it's not. No, look, if you have a good feeling towards God, that's great. I'm like, I'm not going to not having a good feeling towards God. But just understand that when the Bible's talking about loving people, it's never just talking about that, that emotional feeling or whatever that is inside of you. Loving is like an action. It's it's you have to you show your love for people. And that that truth is all throughout the scripture. You know, how can you say you love someone? It's like it's like saying to someone who's who's naked and hungry to saying, Oh, be that warmed and be filled, right? Like, and you don't do anything for him. You don't love that person. You're just like you're saying it with your lips, but but you don't actually love them. And if you say, Oh, I love God so much, and I respect God, he is my Lord, and he is my ruler, and he is my God. But then like, okay, God just told you to do something. Well, I mean, that's but that's like in the Old Testament. God commanded us. He commanded you. And he has come up with some excuses as to why that's just not important, not something you need to do what you know, whatever, like, no, well, you're kind of letting it be revealed that you don't, you don't really love God that much. No matter how much you confess or say that you do, just like children that don't properly discipline their children. The Bible says that you hate them. Look it up in Proverbs Proverbs 23 look it look it up. Okay, if you don't if you don't chastise and discipline your child with the rod, not just not just a directional, okay. Then the Bible literally says that you hate your son. What it says now I'm not preaching about that this this evening, but sometimes people have a skewed version vision or understanding of what love is. And you've got to understand, hey, I want to make sure I got this promise all things work together for good to them that love God. Well, we've got a pretty solid definition in 1 John 5 three of how we can say that we love God. Well, this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous. Now I'm not saying this is the only way that you can say that you love God, but it is a pretty important part. You respecting God by following what he says and having respect to his commandments and to his word and regarding his holy and guarding it as regarding as precious in your heart, right? Let's go back to Romans chapter eight. So that's why I wanted to get that out of the way, like, okay, but but look, if you could honestly say, no, I do care about God's commandments. I mean, this is important in my life, and I do strive to keep them then. Hey, guess what? This verse applies to you. You're saved, you're elect because you put your trust in Jesus Christ. You're the called according to his purpose. And if you love God, then guess what? All things are going to work together for good. And you know what I love about verses like this is when you see them happen in life. And I'm not going to go through my personal testimonies on things like this, but I've seen this. This has come true in my life many times, many times over. And I love when that happens. It's a great feeling because you could see like, wow, these this bad circumstance, this thing happened, you know, it's chaotic. And you think like everything's falling apart. And then through the result of like, all of these things happening, like something really good happens. It's like, wow. And what you have to understand about this too, it says, all things work together for good to them that love God. Good sometimes can be good to other people. And it could be good to other people that you love, right? Which is then good to you, right? When good things happen to those you love, that is good for you. But I'm bringing this up so you we don't just automatically think again, start going down like the prosperity gospel of mindset of just like, oh, well, if I if I, you know, reach in my pocket, and don't even look and just drop that money in there, then I'm going to get 10 times as much just come back to me like within a month. Right? That's what the false prophets say. Because they don't care about you, they care about your money. So they're gonna lie to you and tell you whatever it is that they want to tell you. They want you to become covetous, right? They want to make merchandise out of you. They actually want to get people to sin into thinking like, oh, man, yeah, I want to have more money, and be covetous over money, and start to love that. And that's what they're thinking about when they're putting money in the plate is how much am I going to get back? Instead of just giving and being a cheerful giver, because you love the Lord, you love what's going on, you know, whatever, whatever, you know, the right reasons for giving are the false prophets are the ones encouraging covetousness as they lie to the people in twist scripture. And they'll use verses like this and plenty of others to try to deceive the people. But that's not what this is talking about. It's not that, but the good, good does come, and good can come out of any situation, and it will, because all things work together for good to them that love God. And there's examples, and I think one of the easiest examples is Joseph, right? We've covered him a lot the past year, but you look at his life and all of the things he went through and also just consider the amount of time where he's had some tough times. Because the great thing about a promise like this is we have to remind ourselves of this when you don't see any immediate results, any short term, like, well, how is this good? Think about Joseph, like, how is it good that my brothers tried to kill me and they have me in a ditch? Well, how is it good that they sold me into slavery? It almost seems like things are going bad to worse. Okay, now I'm slave, and now all of a sudden I'm getting thrown into prison. Like, well, how is that good? What do you mean? Like, I keep on trying to do right and things seem to keep getting worse, which is also why you can't just determine on, well, am I doing right based on the short term, based on the narrow view, based on just the temporary circumstances of the time and going, oh, well, since I've tried starting to serve God, all these bad things happen. Well, maybe it's happening because Satan's trying to get you out of church or get you out of serving God. It happens with a lot of new converts, a lot of people who start getting excited about church, all kinds of weird bad things happen, problems come up. The whole point with that, I believe, is because Satan doesn't want them getting on fire for the Lord. So if he could cause someone to have, if they have car troubles, oh, is that going to keep them out of church? Easy, done. What's it going to be? Right? What's their pain point? What's their pressure point? Oh, a family member is going to give them some grief. Oh, that's going to keep them out of church. Oh, they're going to, you know, I don't know, some financial thing, whatever it is, right? If that's going to keep them out, great. But then some people will look at that and go, oh, well, see, look, I had these problems, so this must be a sign that this isn't the right, no, that's not it at all. In fact, if you have patience, if you have faith and patience and you love God, this verse is true. All things work together for good to them that love God. Like I said, Joseph, how many years did he have to deal with everything he dealt with before finally he was exalted, finally he's taken out of prison, and did he receive good? Sure, he did, being in that position. I'm sure he had a lot of benefits to being basically the ruler of the Egypt's kingdom, being second only to Pharaoh in pretty much just a name because he's kind of running everything anyways. But the good that came out of his experience impacted way more than just Joseph, and it wasn't about the wealth of financial gain, it was about keeping all of his family alive and well off and keeping a whole bunch of people alive during the famine. So all those things worked together for good, all the bad things, all the hard times, it was slow, couldn't see it. Joseph, I'm sure, never saw that coming until it actually happened. Even though he had the vision early on, he had no idea how any of that's going to play out, right? He's probably thinking like, how is this going to happen? It's kind of like John the Baptist going, hey, are you the one or do we look for another? Are you the Messiah or are we looking for another? Because his idea of how things were going to play out when Jesus showed up and came on the scene, him going to prison wasn't really on his list of what he was expecting to happen. So he's going like, uh, is this true? And look, I can understand that. I could feel, I sympathize. It's easy for us to look back on history and look back in the Bible and be like, well, yeah, of course you should have just had faith. Well, you know, it's different when you're in it. But the lesson's still there, right? Lesson's still there to learn. We do have to have the faith and we do have to just stick with it and not just let the circumstances dictate necessarily if what we're doing is right or wrong. Just know, ask yourself, Hey, do I love God? And no one loves God perfectly. I get that. Right? Perfect love casteth out fear. None of us have a perfect love. So yeah, we're going to have to have a fear of God, but do we love God? I mean, am I, am I really trying to follow the Lord and follow what? Yeah. So if you get to answer yes to that, then guess what? All things will work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Cause you know, God does have a purpose for you. So if you're loving him and keeping his commandments and you're saved, he has a purpose for you. So he's going to make sure that that good comes out. And I love the context of this passage too. Just jump up there to verse number 26 and 27 right before verse 28 Bible says, likewise, the spirit also helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings, which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the spirit because he maketh intercession for the saints, according to the will of God. And then it follows up with, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them where they're called according to his purpose. And what is verse 26, 27 saying? It's saying that even when we, when we pray, sometimes we don't pray the way that we should pray. Sometimes we're asking for things that aren't maybe according to will of God. Sometimes we just kind of pray dumb things because we don't know everything that we should be praying for as we ought to. But our heart is right and we are looking for like the right thing, but then God has given us the Holy Spirit that could like translate for us and be like, no, no, no, I know what he really wants. Okay. This, this is what you really want. Here, here's your prayer. It's been, it's been interpreted through the Holy Spirit. And now we're sending that prayer up to the father and look, all things work together for good to them that love God. So even when we screw up in like our, our prayers to God, it gets fixed. It's like, Oh yeah, no, no. Here's, here's what they really want. It's awesome. Right? Every reason in the world to love God because he's merciful because he's long suffering because he wants it. He wants us to be happy. He wants to give us joy. Let's keep reading here now in Romans chapter eight, verse number 29 for whom he did for no, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren moreover, whom he did predestinate them. He also called in whom he called them. He also justified in whom he justified them. He also glorified. What shall we say then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? Hey, you love God. Keep his commandments. All things work together for good to them that love God. And why wouldn't they? God has a plan for you. God has a destination for you. God has something in mind for you. God has work for you. And hey, if you love God, you're going to be receptive to what he wants you to do. And he's got a course for you. He already has it planned out. So all we got to do is just keep loving God, keep being mindful for his grants. And you know what? It's going to work out for good. And he knows the path that it's going to take. Just like he knew, you know, when the children of Israel first got out of Egypt, he led their path so that they wouldn't have to face war right away. Because God knew that if they had to deal with a hardship like too quickly, just right away, they weren't ready for that yet. They weren't built up yet. So he made them do, you know, have a D2 or have a little bit different path because he knows what's best for them. And sometimes we think we want something, I want to get in that Promised Land right away, doesn't happen. There's part of that journey, but God knows what's right for you. You know, I can look back on the time that I spent with Word of Truth Baptist Church. And that was, and that wasn't like anywhere near what we have today here with all the people and with all the souls saved and with every, all the great works that's happening here. But you know what? That was needful for me. And maybe starting off and having some huge success right away and all kinds of people showing up and stuff, I might, I probably wouldn't have been ready for that. That's just an example for my personal life. It's one thing that's like, Hey, that was, that was a good thing. It wasn't what I necessarily thought was going to happen, but it worked itself out to where now we could come here and we've got this great church that wouldn't have happened without the other. And as things seem to be falling apart over there, I didn't realize God was opening up doors here. He knew the plan. He knew the path and, and hopefully you all can, can look back on your own lives and have, and have those things to look on too, because they're, it's like I said, it's just confirmation in the Word of God, which we already know to be true. Turn, if you would, to Philippians chapter number one, book of Philippians chapter one. And we're gonna start reading in verse number six, Philippians one, verse number six, the Bible says, being confident of this very thing, that he, which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. This follows with the predestination that we were reading about in Romans chapter eight. God has a calling for you. He's got a place for you. And guess what? You're a child of God. He, you know, you're, you're his elect. He, he wants you to be conformed unto the image of his son. And you know what? He started that good work when you got saved and that new creature was born inside of you. Then you got that new spirit. You got that new man that doesn't sin. But guess what? He wants to strengthen that. He wants you to start mortifying the deeds of your flesh and start building up that spirit and walking in the spirit more and being more and more and more conformed to the image of his son. And obviously he's going to complete that anyways when there's the resurrection, we get new bodies, glorified bodies, and then we will be fully redeemed. And that of course is coming. But God has this plan and we know as much as we know we have eternal life, we know that, hey, what God has begun, that good work that he's, he's begun in you, he's going to perform it until the day of Jesus. Jump down to verse number 12. But I would you should understand brethren that the things which happened unto me, this is an example of the apostle Paul, have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel. So he's talking about him being thrown into prison. What a great example of all things work together for good to them that love God because the apostle Paul loved God. He's preaching the gospel, but what happened? Oh, he's thrown into prison. I mean, getting thrown into prison isn't a good thing, right? No one, no one really wants to get thrown into prison, but what he's helping them understand, he's like, look, you need to understand this, that just don't be discouraged that I'm thrown into prison. Don't be, don't fret over this. Just understand this what's happened unto me. It's fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel. So hey, if me having to go to prison causes a lot more good to come because now the gospel is being spread even farther than amen. Okay. It's a lot easier to deal with the bad things happening to me when I know that all things are still working together for good, even to the point of martyrdom, right? When people lose, they're like, well, I mean, you mean I might lose my life yet? Yeah. But if it think about if it, if it reaches, you know, huge amount of people and you stood on the word of God, it really had an impact on someone else. Now who's going to become the next apostle Paul. Amen. All things work together for good. And look, if we love God, we're going to love the brethren too. So when good things happen to the brethren and good things are happening to our neighbors, then we should be happy about that too. And that is a good thing. Verse number 13, let's keep reading about this, the further into the gospel so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in all other places. So his arrest and his being thrown in prison is actually kind of a big deal to the point where people are talking about it and people would know like, oh man, did he hear Paul? He's, you know, he got thrown into prison because of, you know, he's, he's saying this and he's, you know, so, so what he's preaching now is getting a broader audience to people that weren't getting the gospel before. But now this is big news. I mean, this is a, he's like a political prisoner. People talk about political prisoners, right? Now he wasn't preaching politics, but you know what I mean? He's, he's being persecuted because of what he believes, because he's what he's preaching. And he's different than the charlatans because what he's preaching has power. What he's preaching has force. I mean, there's miracles, there's, you know, lives being changed, like this is the real deal. So if the people know that this isn't phony, people know that there's a prophet among them and he's getting arrested. Yeah. And it's, and it's being talked about so that my, in my bonds, right in Christ are manifest and all the palace and all other places and many of the brethren in the Lord waxing confident by my bonds are much more bold to speak the word without fear. So again, him being the trailblazer, he going forward and just saying, you know what? I'm just going to keep preaching anyways. Hey, they arrested me. So what? Hey, look at the apostle Paul. He did it. We can do it too. It's an encouragement. It's not a, it wasn't a discouragement. He motivated people because here's the thing. When you've got brothers and sisters Christ, especially, and you see someone standing. So it's like, well, wait a minute, let's not let that person just have to deal with the brunt of everything. Let's go preach too. If he did it, why don't we do it? You know, they can't arrest all of us or whatever, whatever the mindset is like, let's just go and do this and be stirred up to serve Lord. Sounds like a lot more good is happening in that situation, right? That without it, maybe people wouldn't have been as stirred up as they had been to preach the gospel. But he's like, look, this is all happening because of, because of what happened to me. And he says this in verse 15, some indeed preach Christ, even of envy and strife and some also of good will. The one preached Christ of contention, not sincerely supposing to add affliction to my bonds, but the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel. So, you know, some people are just kind of mocking and talking about what he's saying and they just want to make it worse for him. But it's like what the media does with what we believe too. It's like someone flips out, some video goes viral, which doesn't really happen that much anymore, but people get all upset over something, some truth that's being preached. But then they just go and like, tell the world what we're saying. So it's like, amen. All right, there you go. Like, they are doing it for strife. They want to cause problems. They want to stir things up. But if they're saying what you say, Christ is still being preached. Like this is what he's saying. Like this is they're reporting on what he believes and what he's saying. Great. Now you're letting even more people know the truth. And he's like, who cares if they're preaching of contention, whatever, at least Christ is being preached. Okay. Some people are doing it for the right reason. Some people are there and they know that I'm being persecuted for the defense of the gospel. And hey, amen. The gospel is being preached because of them. But you know what? The gospel is also being preached there with these people that are trying to mock me and ridicule me and get me in trouble. Hey, at least the truth is still just getting out there, right? That's kind of the way he's looking at it. That all things are working together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to his purpose. Verse 18, what then notwithstanding every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached and I there and do rejoice. Yeah, and will rejoice. I'm happy people are talking about Christ. So I'm trying to do. For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and my hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. And that's when you have that attitude. All things work together for good to them that love God. And he's saying, yeah, look at, look at how much is being done. Hey, if they put me to death, so be it because that's even that much more. It's going to be published abroad. And if I have to sacrifice my body for God to get more glory than then let it be done. So be it. He understood the good that could come out of that, even though for him personally, he might have to deal with something difficult. Nobody is looking forward to like, yeah, just, you know, kill me. Right. I mean, you'd have to be in a pretty bad situation, I guess, if you wanted someone to just kill you. But most people don't want someone to just kill them or have to deal with going through that ordeal. But he was willing like, all right, let's do it. Turn to Psalm 37, Psalm 37. We're actually almost done. So just some words of wisdom from Psalms and Proverbs on God's leading and direction in your life, even though you may not know the path. So going in tandem with, Hey, all things work together for good. When we also understand that God is directing your path. So if you're loving God, you're keeping, you know, you're looking to the Lord, you're seeking God's counsel, you're seeking his wisdom, you want to do what he wants you to do in this life. He will direct your path. So you know that things will work out good when you're seeking him and his path because his way is right. His way is good for you, no matter what that way is, no matter what seems to be going on at any given moment. The Bible says there in verse number 23 of Psalm 37, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and he delighteth in his way. And again, the caveat there is the steps of a good man, right? Do you love God? You love God or do you keep his commandments? Steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. God has your steps laid out for you. He's got them in order for you. And he delights in his way. Though he fall, look at this, talk about the steps of the good man. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down. For the Lord upholdeth him with his hand. What a great promise. Hey, you're looking to God, you want his guidance, even when you fall, even when you stumble, even when you screw up. God's like, Oh, no, no, no. Hey, hold on. And strengthens you and helps you to keep going. He wants you to keep going down the right path. And all things will work together for good. I have been young and now I'm old. Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread. Are you seeking the Lord? Are you trying to fulfill his will? Do you got respect for him? You got love for him? I would say if you're begging bread, then you don't. You don't have the love that you say that you love for him. Because the wisdom is being told here, Hey, my whole life from being young to old, I still haven't seen the righteous forsaken, which God's not going to forsake the righteous or nor his seed begging bread. Because God promised to take care of you. The Bible seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. Is that statement true or false? It's in the Bible. So it's true. We could take that to the bank. He's going to take care of you. So apparently you're not obeying that if you're out begging bread. And I don't care what the circumstances because God made the promise. He is ever merciful and lendeth and his seed is blessed. Depart from evil and do good and dwell forevermore for the Lord loveth judgment and forsaketh not his saints. They are preserved forever, but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off. The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell there in forever. The mouth of the righteous speak at wisdom and in his tongue, his tongue talking of judgment, excuse me, the law of his God is in his heart. None of his steps shall be cut off. And you know, all things working together for good also means like ultimately the end all be all work for good too, by the way, like that's the most important thing is having the spiritual mindset that like all of this stuff here is going to burn up anyways. So just know that no matter what happens in this life on your path, you're loving God, he has commandments, all things do work out for good in the end. And whether you're barren, whether you, you know, whatever's going on in your life, God will bless you when you just obey him, keep his commandments, love him. That's it. Jumped down to verse number 37, mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace. Sounds like things are working together for good for that man too, for the upright. Just a few Proverbs I'm going to close out with Proverbs 16 verse seven. When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. All things working together for good. A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps. And then Proverbs three, verses five and six, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding in all thy ways. Acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. Acknowledge God in your ways. Seek his way, his path, his commandments. It's so simple and have the faith and know that if you do that, if you do that sincerely, God knows your heart. If you're looking for him and say, God, I want your direction. God, please help me. God, help me to know what to do. God, please help me to do more. God, get me on the right path. He will do it because that's what he wants you to do anyways. So when you're willing and you yield yourself to the Lord and say, God, I'm here, mold me, fashion me, use me how you want me to help guide me so I know what's the right path to take. What's the right decision to make. And he's not going to lay it all out for you and let you see all the way down the future. He's just going to say, okay, here's what you need to do now. We've got decisions to make in the short term. Use the Bible, use God's wisdom to make those decisions. And you know what? God will make sure then that your steps are ordered. And for reasons unbeknownst to you. But just know, even in the midst of weird things, bad thing, you know, whatever's going on, all things work together for good. For them that love God, then they're called according to his purpose. Let's bow our heads have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much. For the great promises that you make to us, Lord, it really is humbling that, um, that you love us so much and not only have have provided forgiveness for our sins, but you promise to not forsake us. You promise not to leave us. You promise to make things work out for good. When oftentimes we can look at things that look like impossible situations and they look like, how could any good come out of this dear Lord, but that you can still provide a good outcome. And Lord, thank you for loving us. Thank you for, for caring about us, especially caring enough to direct our paths and to, and to have a way prepared for us, dear Lord, help us to find that way. Help us to know that way. And, um, God, please keep everyone safe this evening. We go our separate ways, but we love you. It's in Jesus Christ. Blessed name we pray. Amen. All right. We're going to sing one last song before we're dismissed for the will for us. Turn to song number 441. Song 441. There is no shadow of turning with me. Thou changest not, thy compassion may fail not, as thou hast been, thou forever will be. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, new mercies I see. All I have needed, thy hand hath provided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me. Summer and winter and springtime and harvest, sun, moon, and stars in their forces above. Join with all nature in manifold witness to thy great faithfulness, mercy and love. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, new mercies I see. All I have needed, thy hand hath provided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me. Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth. Thy own dear presence to die. Strength for today and my hope for tomorrow. Blessings, all mine, with ten thousand beside. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, new mercies I see. All I have needed, thy hand hath provided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.