Thank you again, Mark, for leading us. We appreciate that so much. Good hymns this morning, full of meaning. Welcome to everyone. We have some new visitors this morning. We appreciate you coming and we're going to study God's Word together in 1 Thessalonians this morning. 

The message I've titled is titled, The Effective Word, and I just want to put one thing in your mind and have you maybe write at the top of your notes or to think about as we go through this. Verse 13 in our text, Paul says, the Word of God which also effectively works in you who believe. And what I want you to see is, right before that in a previous verse, he says, when you receive the Word, and here he says you receive the Word, the Word works effectively when we receive it, when we believe it. And that's really the theme of the message this morning. 

It's effective for salvation for those who believe when they hear the Gospel, and it's effective for believers for sanctification and bearing fruit in our lives when we receive it, when we believe it. So that's what we're going to talk about this morning. 

We talk often at Living Hope Church about the joy and privilege of preaching the Gospel message, the good news of Jesus Christ. And there's nothing more important to talk about, whether it be sharing the Gospel with lost men and meetings and circumstances that God arranges for us so that they might believe and be saved, or in the context of a Sunday service or a midweek Bible study, when we're digging deep into the Word of God together in fellowship. 

The Gospel, Jesus, who He is, what He has accomplished is always, hopefully, at the center of everything that we do. We should never get far from the Gospel. We never get past the Gospel. We only come to a deeper understanding of the truths of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, His life in us, and the promises that we have in Him. We need to preach the Gospel to ourselves every day. This is the saving message; this is the effective Word of God. 

Paul wrote in chapter 1, 1 Thessalonians, verse 5, "for our Gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit with much assurance." The Word of God, which Paul speaks, which he preached continually, which he taught and trusted and depended on for his own assurance, was the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And I believe the best illustration of this is the book of Romans. I've told you this many times, but there's no deeper book, there's no greater doctrinal treatise ever written, no more comprehensive explanation of the condemnation of all men, of justification by grace through faith alone, of sanctification by grace through faith alone, the Christian life, the hope of eternal life, than the book of Romans. 

And what is it in its structure? What is it in its content? It's an in-depth study, an explanation, really an expansion of the Gospel itself. It's the condemnation of all men, chapters 1, 18 to 3, 20. It's the doctrine of justification, 3, 21 through chapter 4. It's the basis for our understanding why it is that we can live a new life in Christ and why we have assurance and security in Christ, sanctification, eternal security, in chapters 5 to 8. 

And it's the application of all this doctrine to Israel and God's promises to her in chapters 9 to 11, and particularly in chapters 12 to 16, where we find exhortation to apply the Gospel to our lives every day. My point here, my brothers and sisters in Christ, is that we never get past the Gospel. We never get deeper than the Gospel. Everything we do, all that we believe and all that we need, is wrapped up in the person and work of Jesus Christ and His glorious Gospel, His effective Word. 

We see this throughout the New Testament and pictured and foretold in the Old. This entire book, the only book that God ever wrote, is all about Jesus, all about God's salvation plan, His will to bring all things to consummation in Christ. It's all about the promise, the plan, the provision, the propitiation which is Christ. It's all about the Gospel, the Word of God, the powerful, effective Word. 

And we see that effective Word in our text this morning as it comes to the people of Thessalonica in the ministry of Paul. Let's look at our text together, 1 Thess 2, I want to start back in verse 11. "As you know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you as a father does his own children, that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. For this reason we also thank God without ceasing because when you received the Word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the Word of men but as it is in truth the Word of God which also effectively works in you who believe." 

"For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea, in Christ Jesus. For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen just as they did from the Judeans who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and have persecuted us and they do not please God and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the uttermost." 

I've given you four points on your outline: first, salvation; second, sanctification; third, suffering; and fourth, satisfaction. Paul is thanking God without ceasing because when they came preaching the effective Word, the gospel to the Thessalonians, they received it. Note this, it's vitally important, Paul, the witness, the ambassador of God, came; he was sent, that's the meaning of apostle, a sent one. We are all apostles small a; none of us are apostles big A, right? We were sent; we were commissioned to go out and preach the gospel. So Paul came with the good news as a herald and they heard it. 

In verse 13, they heard the message. Romans 10 tells us that this is how faith comes, by hearing a message about Jesus. So he was faithful to preach it, they heard it, then they received it, that is, they believed Jesus, they turned from idols, what they were trusting in, to Jesus, fully trusting in Him alone. They welcomed Paul's words, not as the words of men, but as the words of God, as it is in truth. And when they received the word, when they placed their faith in Jesus and what He accomplished alone, the word worked effectively in them. They were saved, they were justified, and they were born again, regenerated, made new men. And the Holy Spirit came to live in them permanently as a guarantee of their inheritance, of glorification to come. 

And He worked in them to empower them to live a new life. This is God's plan for salvation, and it's the only way that a man can be saved. I'd like for you to turn over to Romans 10 with me, please. Romans 10 at verse 8, Paul writes, "But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith which we preach, that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, 'whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.'" 

"For there's no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things. But they have not all obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah says, 'Lord, who has believed our report?'" 

"So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." You see, this is God's plan. This is His way. This is His means. But there must be a preacher. And that is you, my brother, my sister in Christ. To you has been committed the word of reconciliation. You are the heralds. You are the ambassadors of Christ, sent out into this world to preach the message about Jesus, the gospel. 

It's not you who saves. It's not up to you to make the word effective by your method, by your means, by new and slick ideas, or the manner of your speech, or the profundity of your presentation. It's the gospel that is the power of God unto salvation. The message preached, and that's what you are to do in the natural course of your lives with the people you meet, the ones that God brings into your life and provides opportunities for you to love, to care for, to tell about Jesus. 

And this was the life of Paul. This was his ministry. He came preaching the word, not of men, but in truth, the word of God. And the word was powerful. It was effective by the work of the Holy Spirit, and because of the willingness of the hearts of the people there to receive it. This is how salvation came to them. 

And next we see that this same word, this same spirit that works in them for sanctification, that is the power that conforms them to the likeness of Christ. Look at verse 11 in our text again. "As you know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, that you should walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. For this reason, we also thank God without ceasing because when you receive the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe." 

The word effectively works in those who believe. Jesus said it this way, "Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth." Paul explains in Romans 12 that sanctification comes by continually renewing our minds to the truth, to the words of God. 

We talked last week about Paul's words in verses 11-12, the exhortation to the believers to walk worthy of their calling. Paul uses the same words in Ephesians 4; he says, "I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called." These words are full of meaning. They literally exhort us to walk in equal weight, in consistency with who we are on the inside. This is vital to understand if we are to understand sanctification in the Christian life. If we are exhorted to walk in consistency outwardly with who we are inwardly, then it's important to understand who we are inwardly. 

Paul gives us the exact same exhortation in Romans 12, turn over to Romans 12-1. After 11 chapters of tremendous, profound doctrine, he begins in 12-1 to exhort us to apply that doctrine, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God." 

The words conformed and transformed are, in my mind, some of the most instructive in the Bible concerning sanctification in the Christian life. Paul literally says, stop being conformed by external forces, the world system, into something that is inconsistent with who you are. In other words, don't let the world, the external forces and schemes of Satan determine how you live. Stop letting it conform you to its ways and its wisdom. And this is rampant in the church today. 

Where do you think this present form of the social gospel comes from? Where are we called to bring equity and justice to this world system? Jesus did not come to save us from social injustice; He came to save us from the wrath of God to come. It's not our job to make the world Christian, nor to fix the ills of society. It is our job to love, to care for, to minister to those around us, but primarily with the gospel truth. 

Spurgeon said, "If you're going to give a man a sandwich, you'd better wrap it in a tract." Feeding the poor does the poor no good, unless we give them the bread of life, the gospel truth. So Paul writes to the church, this is just an example, an illustration, but he says, stop being conformed by the world. Stop letting the world shape you and mold you into its form. 

And the contrasting exhortation is so very instructive; rather, he writes, be being transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. The word transformed is the word metamorphame; it's where we get our word metamorphosis. I want you to think of a butterfly bound up in that caterpillar. We are incarcerated in this flesh, but we are new creations on the inside. We are new men on the inside, new creations in Christ with a new heart and a new spirit and Jesus himself living in us and through us. 

This is what we are on the inside. How should this be manifested outwardly through our lives? Paul says, by the continual renewing of our minds to the truth of God's Word concerning these things. The Word effectively works in us when we receive it, that is to believe it. Romans 6 says we must first know, and I'm not sure how many Christians know what God says is true of them now that they are in Christ. 

The truth that they are dead to sin, that they're dead to the law, that they're released from the bondage of the fear of death. Listen carefully to Romans 6, 5 to 7. He says, "For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this," here's what happened, my friends, when you believe Jesus. God took you, your old man and Adam, and He put you on that cross. He crucified you with Christ. "Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him for the express purpose that the body of sin, that's this body controlled by indwelling sin, would be done away with or rendered powerless. That we should no longer be slaves of sin, for he who has died has been freed from sin." Did you know this truth? 

Our old man was crucified with Christ. That old man and Adam, dominated and controlled by indwelling sin, died, is no more, was buried with Christ, and He rose from the grave a new man with a new kind of life. "For he who has died has been freed from the controlling power of sin that dwells in us, in our members." That's what God says. First we have to know it. Then Paul says we have to reckon it to be so. Logizomai, present tense, continuous action. You hear the word logic in there, logizomai; it's a logical, Paul says in Romans 12, it's reasonable for us to live a new life if we reckon these truths to be so. 

Romans 6:11, after giving us ten important truths of what happened when we believed Jesus and were united to Him in His death, burial, and resurrection, he says, "Likewise you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Reckon. It's ongoing, it's continual, it's like spiritual breathing, that's what pastor used to say. It's like spiritual breathing, each moment of each day. 

The battle of the Christian life is not one against sin in particular. We have to quit fighting the battle out here in our members. We have to quit going to the law. If I try to win the battle by saying, I will not steal, I will not steal, I will not steal, and then fight the battle in my members at my hands, there's no power, there's no truth basis for victory, and I'll fail. 

The battle of the Christian life, my friends, is in the mind, and it's not the power of positive thinking; don’t be confused by Norman Vincent Peale. It's truth, it's what God says about us, and that word will effectively work in us by His power when we receive it, when we believe it, when we reckon it. It's won in the mind by knowing the truth of God's Word, renewing my mind to it, and choosing to believe it one moment at a time.

I want to go back to James to understand this because it's so important. Go to James 1:14 with me, please. We're talking about the Word of God effectively working in the believers in Thessalonica and how they bore this tremendous fruit that brought such encouragement to Paul. James 1:14 says, "But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death." 

People are always saying, the devil made me do it, right? Well, the devil has set up a system, this world system, which expertly plays on the sinful condition of man. But look at what James says about sin and how it comes to pass, how my hands end up stealing. Each one is tempted when he's drawn away by his own desires and enticed. It's something that rises up in us, you see. That sin beast is still in us as believers, and dwelling sin is still there. It didn't die. It didn't change. I died, and my relationship to sin changed. 

But it keeps trying to take back its authority over me. So there's an enticement. The word literally means a trap, like one set for an animal, a lure or a bait to entice him, a baited hook, a big fat worm with a hook inside. It looks good on the outside, but inside there's a trap. Something entices us. We're drawn away by our desire. The words drawn away also speak of hunting or fishing and mean to draw away from a place of safety. Certainly our spiritual adversary, the devil, is called the tempter in God's Word. 

Certainly the devil does employ his deceptive wiles against us in order to tempt us into disobedience and rebellion. Yet the devil's temptations can only find a place to take root in us through our own selfish desires. The true source of sinful temptation is not from outside ourselves, but from inside. Thus the responsibility for any sinful fault in our lives is our own, rooted in our own selfish desire. But as God's own children, granted newness of spiritual life and indwelt by God the Holy Spirit, we are not only able to resist temptation and refuse unrighteousness, but it is rational and it is reasonable. 

It is logical that we should live in righteousness. It is consistent. It is of equal weight for us to live in continual spiritual victory. I often hear believers say to me, "Yeah, but we're gonna sin." I always tell them to be careful because they might live up to their expectations. God says we're dead to sin. God says we should no longer live in sin. God says He has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. We are new men on the inside. We should expect to live new lives on the outside by His grace and power.

So James describes this process in the mind. We're drawn away. We're enticed by the sin in us. A desire and emotion rises up in us. And here's the point of the battle, my friend. Please listen carefully. The point of the battle is in the mind. I usually use an illustration here about me and my wife, but that gets dangerous sometimes. So I'll tell you a story about my parents. I remember one time when I was young on the farm in Indiana, we had a huge garden when I was a kid, a massive garden. 

And my mom and I, with the help of a relative sometimes, would put up over 600 quarts of various garden products. I remember picking truckloads of tomatoes from those huge plants that grew so well on those warm summer nights in Indiana. When I came here, I thought, those aren't tomato plants. You don't even need a chainsaw to cut those down. So one morning, my mom and I got up at 4 a.m. and my sister-in-law came over early to help us do some canning. We worked all day picking, cooking, squeezing tomatoes. 

That was my job, turning that wooden pestle, squeezing the juice through that old colander. We may have taken a break or two to watch the guiding light and snap some beans or shell some peas, but we worked all day making juice, canned tomatoes, sauce, paste, all day on those endless tomatoes. I remember my dad came home from work about 5 o'clock that evening. We're still cleaning up in the kitchen. There's quarts of tomato products everywhere, and he walked in the kitchen and he said to my mom, "You didn't even get to the cucumbers today." 

This is a real-life practical situation, my friends, and if you are a Christian, which we weren't at that time, but if you are a Christian, how do you react when someone says or does something that causes anger to rise up in you? Or we could use an illustration of lust or covetousness or some other enticement to evil that rises up a desire in you. When a desire, an emotion, a feeling rises up within you, at this point you as a believer in Jesus Christ, a regenerated, born-again child of God, have a choice. Lost man and Adam does not have a choice. 

Will I choose to believe my feelings, my emotions, even my prior experience, or will I choose to believe, to reckon what God says to be true? The battle is won or lost right here at this point in the mind. Each one of you is tempted when he's drawn away by his own desires and ties. Then when desire has conceived, James says, it gives birth to sin and sin to death. What James is teaching us is that when we make that mental decision to yield to the sin in us, or when we choose to reckon our death to sin, our resurrection to a new kind of life, if I believe God and decide in my mind to do, to ask Jesus to help me to do what's right, to reject sin and its deceptive power, then righteousness will be worked out through my members. 

I have to tell you, when my wife says something cross to me, if I think in my mind I'm dead to sin, I love her. I want what's best for her. Jesus help me. If I do that in that moment, I can't sin. I can't yell back at her. It ain't gonna happen. But if I think that, dirty louse, I've been, I did the laundry today, I cleaned the dishes, and she's gonna come in here, sin is conceived. 

It's coming out. I mean, we can all empathize with my mother at that point, right? No one would probably fault her for going off on my dad and putting him in his place. We could rationalize it, but it's still sin. And for a believer, there should be a choice to yield to the truth, to the effective Word of God and the life of Christ in us, and we should walk worthy of our calling in consistency with who we are and yield our members unto righteousness and not unto sin. 

In 2nd Corinthians 10:3, Paul says, "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God, for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, listen to this, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." The battle is in the mind to know, to reckon, to choose to believe God and His Word and to yield to His power in us. 

This is the Christian life, abiding in Him, believing Him, trusting Him every moment, and He'll produce the fruit through us. So we see salvation, we see sanctification, we see suffering. Verse 14, "For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus. For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen just as they did from the Judeans, who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us, and they do not please God, and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins, but wrath has come upon them to the uttermost." 

We've seen the effective word in the lives of the believers in salvation and in sanctification, but the Word of God is also effective concerning the unbeliever and their response to it. In John 10:24 we see the story of Jesus talking about His sheep, how His sheep know His voice, and He talks about the Father, and He says, "I and the Father are one," and it says the Jews picked up stones to stone Him. He says, "I do many good works, what work do you stone me for?" 

"What good work? We do not stone you for a good work, we stone you because you, a man, make yourself God." But if you go down to verse 42, it says, "Many believed on Him there." Jesus spoke the truth concerning who He is, God in the flesh, concerning His salvation work on the cross, what He did. He came to His own, but they received Him not. The Jews rejected Him, and here it says they took stones to stone Him. 

When the Word of God, the truth, is presented, is spoken, is preached, there will be different reactions. Primarily those who are willing to believe, who want to know the truth, will receive it, will rejoice in it. But for those who are hard-hearted, unwilling, they will reject it. Rejected in their hearts and minds, and to varying degrees, they will reject it with hostility. That's the word Paul uses in our text; they're hostile to all men, and even violence. They picked up stones to stone Him. 

"For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans," Paul says. At the mention of the Judeans, Paul remembers all of the persecution that he and all the believers in many churches had suffered at the hands of the Jews, and he had once perpetrated that persecution as Saul of Tarsus, as a wild beast tearing at the church. 

In Acts 22, Peter's preaching on the day of Pentecost, he says, "Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves also know. Him being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death, whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it." 

The history of the nation of Israel and its willful rejection of God and His Christ is a tragic story, but it's clear that it was the Jews that dogged the steps of Paul all the way through his ministry. Even when he first came to Thessalonica, we read in Acts 17 about persecution from the Jews. They stirred up the men in the city, got them all riled up. It says, "Those who have turned the world upside down have come here too, they do things that are not lawful," talk about another king, Jesus. 

It's interesting to read the very end of the book of Acts and the last records of Paul's ministry. It says, "But we desire," this is his testimony, "we desire to hear from you what you think for concerning this sect we know that it is spoken against everywhere." So when they had appointed him a day, all the Jews came to his house where he was incarcerated, and he spent the whole day testifying of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from the law of Moses and the prophets, morning till evening, it says. 

Some of them were persuaded, but they did not agree among themselves; they departed after Paul said one word, "The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers saying, 'Go to this people and say, hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive. For the hearts of this people have grown dull, their ears are hard of hearing and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn so that I should heal them.'" 

And Paul says, "Therefore let it be known to you," speaking to the Jews, "that salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles and they will hear it." And that really set them off. Salvation has come to the Gentiles because the Jews rejected seeking to establish their own righteousness by the law. But it will not always be this way, my friends. The rapture of the church will come when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in and then God will turn His chastening hand back toward Israel, and when Jesus comes a second time in glory, they will look on the one whom they pierced and all Israel will be saved and the glorious Kingdom for Israel, a thousand-year reign of Christ on David's throne will be ushered in and God will keep His promises to Israel. 

But in Romans 11, Paul says, "Now for this time they are enemies of the gospel." And this was true throughout the New Testament times. The Jews persecuted Paul and many of the believers in various churches and the Gentiles suffered from their own countrymen. We see this promise from Jesus, from Paul, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution, a servant is not greater than his master. 

So we see salvation, we see sanctification, we see suffering, and finally we see satisfaction at the end of verse 16, "so as always to fill up the measure of their sins but wrath has come upon them to the uttermost." These words at the end of verse 16 remind us of Paul's words in the second letter to the Thessalonians. Look at 2 Thessalonians 1:4, please. He says, "So that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure, which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which you also suffer. Since it is a righteous thing," look at these words, "since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, inflaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power when he comes in that day to be glorified in his saints and to be admired among all those who believe because our testimony among you was believed." 

Well, here we see the contrast again between believer and unbeliever. It's not a comfortable thing to talk about, to think about what awaits the one who rejects Christ. But God's wrath will be satisfied. And every man has a choice to believe Jesus, to trust in him and his satisfaction of the wrath of God on our behalf through his death on the cross, or we have the choice to stand on our own two feet, to stand before God at his judgment based on our own merits, our works, our religious affiliation. 

In Romans 2, Paul says, "God judges according to truth." He tells the Jews, "In accordance with the hardness in your impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." 2 Corinthians 5:11 says this, "Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." 

You thought about that. We're not here to tell people Jesus is fun, or that Jesus is going to make your life better. We're here knowing the terror of the Lord to persuade men to believe the gospel. In verse 19 of 2 Corinthians 5, he says, "That is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us. We implore you, on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him." 

My brothers and sisters in Christ, let's be about the mission that Jesus has given us. Knowing the terror of the Lord, knowing the truth of sin and righteousness and judgment, let's love men enough to tell them the truth. Let's persuade men with the good news of the gospel, and let's walk worthy of our calling in consistency with who we are, as we know, reckon, yield, as we abide in Christ one day at a time through faith. 

For I have been crucified with Christ, and it's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. In the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. The effective working of the Word of God, His truth, by faith. This is the way to life, to salvation. It's the way of life for sanctification, and it's the means and method of our witness in this world as well. 

Let's close in prayer. Father, we're so thankful for Your truth, Your Word. We know nothing apart from Your Word that is true. And Your Word tells us about Jesus, Your Son. It's through Your Son that You speak to us, reveal Yourself to us fully. Father, help us to look at Him. Look unto Jesus as we run this race. Trust Him, abide in Him, and believe Him, believe what Your Word says, and reckon it to be so, and then trust You by Your power to produce fruit through our lives. We know that's Your desire; we know that's Your intention; we know that's why You saved us. Help us to bring You glory in all that we do, and bring many to Christ through our witness. In Jesus' name. Amen.