1/5/2020 Who We Are to God

he's and turn to Romans Chapter eight. That's where you're going to start out. That's not where I'm going to start out, but it's where you're going to start out. Romans 8 16 through 17 I'm really excited as I begin a new Siri's to start off the new year called God's Kingdom on Earth.

Over the next few weeks, we're gonna be looking at today who we are to God, then who we are to each other and who we are to the world and what that means. And we're gonna get really deep in some things.

And so I hope that you'll be prepared to go a little deep with me over the next few weeks. You should be Roman, say, but I'm in Matthew 16 18 and this is the leaping off verse in the theme verse Really, for this series, where Jesus is speaking to Simon and it's where he changes his name, he says.

I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of Haiti's will not overpower it. Now I believe that I don't think he's being just specific about Peter. I think Peter was one of the main apostles to whom the church was formed.

But he continues to build his church through his people. You've been given a new name. You've been transformed. You have a new name in heaven. Whether you realize it or not, you do. And you have been made new.

And you are part of God's kingdom on Earth, which is called the church. And what Jesus says here is very important. And I think it's something we need to grass that there is nothing not death, not hell itself, that can overpower God's kingdom on earth.

Nothing can overpower his church, which means nothing can overpower any individual member of his church, those who are saved in Christ or going to stay that way and cannot be defeated. Day men. Yet most of us act like, sometimes look like and seem like life itself is just defeating us, running all over us and just tearing us apart.

Yet the Bible clearly tells us we cannot be overcome. I think Jesus wants us. If you get nothing else out this series, I want you to hear this quote that I'm putting in Jesus's mouth. Okay, if Jesus could speak to you that I think you'd say this.

You are a part of my church, my kingdom on earth and nothing. I have declared nothing. Not even hell itself can overpower the church because it's my church and nothing can overpower me. Amen. So why do we look so defeated? And why do we act so defeated all the time? And we do? Let's be honest, we do.

We can let the little list most my new thing, take us totally away from God and get us on our own track. And yet, he says, if you will just stay in me, you'll find victory. If you just stay in me, you'll overcome as part of his church.

You have power placed in you by God to overcome. So then overcoming is not a matter of trying harder. It's a matter of surrendering ourselves to the power of God that's already been placed within us. The presence and power of the Holy Spirit inside of us is more powerful than anything Satan can throw at us from the outside.

So over the next few weeks we will seek to discover why this is and how we can display the power of God with authority and love. Well, look at God's kingdom on Earth, as it said, Discover who we are to God, who we are to each other, who we are to the world, because who we are to God this morning is vitally important for us.

We live life looking in a mirror. Let's be honest, we're constantly examine ourselves and I'm gonna tell you, you know what that does That brings us to a point of depression. Most of the time for some of us, look in the mirror is a lot more depressing than others.

Some of y'all are really good looking, and I get that. But constant personal examination often leads us to focusing. End Maur. What disappoints us about ourselves than what we call it? Humility. Rather than seeing the good things ourselves, we see the bad things in ourselves.

That's one of the hard things about being a pastor. People put you up on a pedestal. I've talked about myself. People put passion vessel and you look in the mirror and you see your faults and other people don't see your faults, and they say, You're this and it's really hard sometimes not to feel isolated and lonely and discouraged because you have struggles like everybody else does.

But nobody else sometimes really wants to know about it because they want to be will keep you from there on a pedestal. You know what I'm saying? That's why I try to be transparent. I'll let you know I struggle just like you do.

You know, I have problems just like you do. All right, Um, some of us, when we look in the mirror and I will find that discouragement, others will look in the mirror and start comparing ourselves to other people who are worse than us just to make ourselves feel a little bit better.

Have you ever done that one? Yeah. Yeah, but reality is what God sees. One of God's goals for us as Christians is to get us to see ourselves, to see life, and to see the world as he sees it goes, Let's be honest.

If you see the world just through your own eyes, yeah, You're gonna walk around the fear you're gonna rock around in anger. You're gonna walk around, discourage. But if you see it through his eyes, he's gonna transform what you see and how you see it and what you think of it.

So who are you to God? When he looks at you, What does he see or desire to see in you? This this These messages of these three weeks are really addressed to Christians. If you've accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you're part of God's kingdom on earth and you are three things that I want to share.

Primarily this one. There's other things with those three things I want to focus in on. First of all, you are his child. You're his child. He is your father. In Romans 8 16 through 17 Paul writes this The spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are Children of God.

And if Children heirs also heirs of God and fellow airs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. Verse 16 is telling us the Holy Spirit, one of the works, the Holy Spirit, is to continually remind us that we have a heavenly father who loves us and that were his child.

And I don't know about you, but I need to hear that Sometimes I stumble and fall. Sometimes I have seen in my life just like you do. And it's in those moments that I start to question everything about myself, don't you? Yes, we do.

It's in those moments. We need the voice of the Holy Spirit. Say it's okay. I love you. You're my child. Yeah, You messed up. But you're still my child. No matter what, We're always Children of God. Even the earthly parents of a drug, a drug addict, still love their child.

They may practice tough love because they may need to to break them of that. But they still love their child. Why? Because it's your child, right? As Children who have been born again from above. We are loved by God, raised by God, disciplined by God and taught by God.

Yet just like with my Children, just like with your Children, we're free to make choices in life. I mean, some of you have raised your Children. They're gone. And some of you still have Children. You didn't raise your Children.

You're not raising your Children. Two on Lee. Be able to do what you tell them to do and never make a choice for themselves, right? I mean, you give them that freedom to exercise their will. The correction comes after they exercise their will in a wrong way.

That's how you learn lessons in life, right when you mess up and somebody tells you you messed up and can help you figure out what you should have done. Instead, we're free even to disobey God, even though we're his Children.

We have that free will to respond him in a positive way or to ignore him and try going our own way when you're in a restaurant. And I just thought a random age because it's probably about the right age.

Someone's four year old just starts going ballistic and having a meltdown in the middle of a restaurant. Everybody's. Here's the four year old going off in the restaurant. They're just having this meltdown and everybody, you know, start getting comfortable.

I don't want to look over at him, you know. You're feeling all of that. But what are you thinking when that happens? You're sitting there thinking of all the ways you could set that child straight. Now, be honest.

You are okay. You are. I know you are because I do. You may even judge the parents a little bit a cz if they're not good parents. When you don't really know the full story, let's be honest. You don't know.

Okay, could be a very good reason what's going on. But you think of that. Why? Maybe because a child distraction, but mostly because you believe the child needs to learn to live a disciplined life. And you believe you could teach him that I could discipline that child.

I get that shot straight. I could do it. As parents, we take no joy and disciplining a child when we have to accept the fact that hopefully makes the child more discipline in life as they grow up. That's the point of discipline.

You discipline a child about something now in hopes that as they grow up, they will build off of that lesson in that moment to make wise choices in different situations. If you allow child always have their way to get their way because they pitch a fit, how are they going to act in a workplace? Some days, an adult all right, you build on things.

That's why we discipline. So it is with our heavenly father. We send. He disciplines us in order to shape us and mold us into better people in his kingdom. People who look more like Jesus. It's what we do with our Children.

It's why we do with our Children. We teach them it obey by giving them the freedom to choose to obey or disobey. Then we teach them a lesson. They need to learn with either positive or negative reinforcement in hopes that they will learn to obey us and ultimately learn to obey God as God's Children.

We all sin from time to time like a petulant child. We need to be disciplined, don't we? And it's being one of his Children. I want to focus in on that primarily because it's way say amen. I'm loved by God.

Amen. I'm being taught by God. But when you bring up your being disciplined back, I will go. Whoa, in a minute. I don't know if I want that. I'm gonna focus in on the part that you don't like probably and don't want in your life too much.

Hold your place in in Romans that will come back to it and go to Hebrews. 12 Hebrews, 12. Five through 10. Here in Hebrews, we get an understanding off God's discipline where it comes from, what it's meant to accomplish.

Hebrews 12 5 through 10 I just want to walk through these versus one. But I'm not gonna read whole thing in one's in one shot. Just gonna take it one verse of the time. And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to us sons, Children, my son.

Do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord or faint when you are reproved by him. In other words, take this one seriously. For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines and discourages every son whom he received.

So the reason we're to take discipline seriously is because it comes from his what his love. It's born out of a heart of love for us. We accept his heart of love for us. When he does blessings toward us, right when he blesses us, we appreciate that that love being showed us.

But when he disciplines us, I mean, let's be honest. When you were a kid and your mom or your dad whipped that meltdown, they came after you. Some of you have got that a little more than others, right? Tommy Gore with that belt came after you.

You didn't see that is love. Who did your mom and dad. Same is true when God disciplines us, we may not see that is love in the moment, but he does. And again, what are we trying to see here? How does God see us? How does God want us to understand what he sees when he looks at us? And he looks at us with love and he says, I'm doing this because I love you going back to that restaurant.

You can't discipline that child because it's somebody else's child. But if it's your child, you can. I remember one time I've told this story, but it's been many years ago cause golly, Josh, what? 22 now? And he was probably about four.

I'm not even sure if Alex had been born yet. He may have been in the stroller. I'm not sure, but we went to target in Wilmington one day, and this was long ago, so long ago that when you win it a target.

If you know target the electronics is down the back. It used to be over the right hand corner and and that's what we did. You know how you go in the store and you start in one spot and you work your way around the store.

We were just out for an outing. I didn't know what we were there for. We may have been there for a few specific things. We might have been just there to have a good time. You know, sometimes you just young and you'll have a lot of money.

And you got kids. You just go do something, get him out of the house a little bit, you know? So we get over, we start to that right, and we get our electronics. And Josh spied something. I don't know what it waas.

I can't remember to this day what it was, but he wanted it. He would have it. He wanted play with it. I don't know what he wanted. He started pitching a fit. He still does. Pitched fits from, but he started pitching a fit.

Now it was one of those fits that. When I said no, he didn't wanna listen to me. And when I said, Come on, let's go and took him by the hand. He threw himself like dead weight into the floor. Well, I'm one of those dads, and I go, Okay, that's what you want.

That's what you get. So I picked him up and I said, Natalie, have a good time. We're going to the car. We had been in the store five minutes over One thing he lost that entire time in the store and I took him out to the van of discipline where he did promptly get disciplined.

What I was teaching him was you can't always have what you want when you want it. And this is certainly not the way to get it. And if you can't get it that way from me, Yes. What? When you pray I don't want to God for things like you deserve it.

Don't pitch a fit with God like you deserve it. Say God, you blessed me with what you want me to have. Stop looking at the things everybody else has it God's blessed them with and start saying, God, I want you to bless me.

What you want me to have? Whatever it is, you can go to the very end of the store until we get to the last section. If that's where my thing is, that's fine. I don't have to have the first beautiful thing I look at for seven.

It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with us with sons for what son is there, whom his father does not discipline. We dwell with God so that he can. The tourists we don't dwell with God, just weakened blesses.

We dwell with him so that he can make us more like Jesus. And that's not an easy process all the time. It can be hard. Sometimes discipleship and discipleship is closely tied to the word discipline for a reason.

Because discipleship comes through discipline like we do for our Children. God teaches us the disciplines to our choices with good and bad. Good choices do bring blessings, Bad choices. You know what God does with me with bad choices? He doesn't strike me down like people.

I can always go strike me down. Now he doesn t that send lightning bolts. What he does is you for just a little while. He lets me feel the guilt and shame. See, God don't want us Welcome and guilt shame all the time.

But when we insist on doing things that ought to bring us guilt and shame, he'll let us feel it for a little while until we repent. And we were pent. Guess what replaces it. That piece enjoy started coming right back, but he'll let us feeling.

He let us feel that guilt and shame, even though he doesn't want us to live in it. But Helen's feeling to discipline us, we're safe. But if you are without discipline, of which all have become part takers than you are illegitimate Children and not sons.

Whoa! That's a verse you gotta look at. That's a verse you gotta meditate on. That's a verse you've got to think about for a minute. I'm gonna tell you what it comes down to if you do not experience the discipline of Lord ever.

If you do whatever you want to do and feel no guilt and feel no shame and don't feel anything at all, you're not a child of God, period. I have never Natalie and I have never let our Children disobey us where we didn't at least make them feel bad about it.

Ever. And God won't do that with you either because you're his child and he wants to keep you where you need to pay because he knows what's best for you. Just like you knew is best for your Children. He will discipline.

And if he's not, discipline, if you're doing whatever you want to do and it doesn't bother you one link you need to accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior because you don't have the Holy Spirit abiding in you, telling you what sin is.

Because one of the roles Holy Spirit, is to what? Show us our sin and teach us what is righteous. And if that's not happening in your life, there's a problem. And it's called lawlessness. Verse nine. Furthermore, we had earthly father, two disciplines.

We respected them. I know I respected mine. So we not much rather be subject to the father of spirits and live. I'm gonna tell you some he doesn't use a belt but his belts a lot bigger in my daddy's ever Iwas.

If he wanted to be good and you know what? He loves me a lot more than my my earthly father ever could, which means the disappointment. I bring to him should really hurt my heart, not trying to bring anybody down.

But they're being honest today 1st 10 for the discipline. It's for a short time. It seemed best of them, but he disciplines us for good so that we may. Here's the key. Share His Holiness. Now there's none good.

But God, his purpose in it is to make us holy to sanctify us. The only way our behavior changes in many disciplines is work is us in our lives to bring change to our hearts so that we desire the things that are wholly rather than things that our unholy that's this whole purpose in discipline.

His Children, it's revealed. Don't don't turn to this. But let me just turn too quickly in Ezekiel 36 22 3 23 Just listen to this. Therefore I say to you, House of Israel could easily be church. Thus says, Lord God, it is not for your sake Oh, House of Israel that I'm about to act In other words, about to send him in exile, about to discipline him.

But for my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went, I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations which you have profaned in their midst than the nations will know.

That I am. The Lord declares the Lord God when I prove myself holy among you in their sights, that's why God disciplines us. If his name is not wholly than our behavior, doesn't matter. But because it is wholly then he must discipline those who are hiss and carry his name.

Would we walk in ways that are on holy because his reputation is on the line? What people think of him is on the line. If we just walk around living any way we want, then people don't think very highly of God.

Do you understand what I'm saying? They don't see him is holy. They see him as our own holiness. They see him in our own holdings. So we're supposed to display holding its, which puts walking home because we carry is name everybody understand what I'm saying there and going back to Romans eight, verse 17.

We find that our father wants us to be disciplined Children just like Jesus, because he's made us fellow airs with him did you catch that? You know what that means? That means that you're adopted. That means that you are in the family.

That means that what he receives as inheritance, you also get to share in and receive as an inheritance. That's huge. I mean, we are not Jesus, but we get to enjoy the inheritance of Jesus when we get to heaven, because he has made us his Children.

And it says in that version for 17 if indeed we stuff with him. So we may also be glorified with him. The world's full of hardships and trials, and we all have failures. God wants to take all of that.

What he wants to if he wants to use it to pound that worldly stuff in us and make it come out of us and transform it into Jesus. That's what he wants to do. Somebody pounds out metal and shapes it into something where they do, they heat it up, make it a little hot, and then he put pressure on it, pound on it and shape it into what they want to shape it into.

That's what discipline is like, and that work prepares us for the day we will be glorified in heaven with him and sharing in the glory of Jesus Christ, John, 1 12 to 13 says. But as many as received him to them.

He gave the right to become Children of God to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor the will of man but of God. You are a child of God. If you have been born of God through Jesus Christ, we've been given a new position in life.

Instead of an outcast. We're an adopted child. Given that position by the blood of Jesus in the will of God, as his Children were being raised to walk in newness of life, the lessons that accomplished that work can be hard and painful.

But if we let God the father parentis, we will grow to be like his true son, Jesus as his Children. God is her father and he knows best and everything. Secondly thing you are this morning and a little shorter is you are his servant.

You're not only his child, you are his servant. A man went to the doctor after weeks of symptoms, and the doctor examined him carefully, then called the patient's wife into his office and says, Your husband is suffering from a rare form of anemia, and without treatment he will die, probably in a few weeks.

The good news is it could be treated with proper nutrition. You're gonna need to get up early every morning and fix him a hot breakfast pancakes, bacon, eggs, the works. He's gonna need a home cooked lunch every day and then an old fashioned meat and potato dinner every evening.

It would be especially helpful if you could bake frequently. Cakes, pies, homemade bread. These things will help your husband live. And one more thing is immune. System's a little weak, so you need to keep the house perfectly spotless at all times.

Do you have any questions, she said. No, sir, I don't Do you want to break the news or Shilla? She said. I'll do it. So she goes in the examining room and he could see it all over face. He goes. That's bad, isn't it? She nodded, tears welling up in rise because what's gonna happen to me? Asked she sobbed and blurt out, You're gonna die we hear the word servant, and too often we have a negative connotation.

Don't we wear me out? I'm just gonna be I don't want to do this. I don't. We think service is demeaning. Maybe. Think we should get paid for it. Every little thing we did. Well, when it comes to the church, we have been right.

Jesus gives us eternal life. They paid it. We become a service not out of obligation. But I love Jesus gives his turn life based on his love first, then calls us to serve him out of our love for him. Ephesians 2 10 says where we are his workmanship.

That means work of art created in Christ, Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand so that we could walk in them. In other words, every time we walk, we're walking in the direction of good works everywhere.

We Ggo were seeking to do the good works of God. And as we go through this series, we're gonna get a little more specific about what that means. Our new life and crisis have been given to us for that purpose.

Paul called himself a servant over and over again. Even a slave at times, and that has negative connotation to. But Paul used. He knew he owed, got his life and love. He simply followed the example of Jesus, who said himself in Matthew, 2028 the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life for ransom for many, but that describe you today, giving your life from any that was a ransom.

But just as a servant, we make life in church all about us. Instead of him, we make God take a back seat. Us. That's what we do. Churches fuss and fight about the things they want to do and what they want to do.

They put God in the back seat, and the one sits in the driver's side and one sits in the passenger side and they flushed and they fight about what they're going to do. All the while, he's in the back seat saying, This is what I'd like to do.

Could be. But listen to me, please, and and that's the way we are with our lives sometimes not just a jerk. Jesus put the will of the father above all things even to the point of a demeaning criminals.

Death on a cross you in May. That's the picture. True, devoted servant. There's so many ways to serve, Lord, most of us think about what we do at the church on. That's very important, and many of you are very talented and very devoted.

And I'm so thankful for all the talent devotion we have in this church. But there's also the kind of service that God wants us to engage in, and that's to be available to him everywhere all the time, looking for ways to reveal God's love through our service wherever we go.

Whatever we did, just a simple is speaking a kind word to somebody because we don't know what their day has been like. They may need it. If God prompts us to, we should do it as the servants. God is our master that we should willingly and lovingly served, and third this morning.

The third thing is that we are his bride. You are his bride, turned to Ephesians five, and I do this with fear and trembling This morning. Ephesians five, starting with Verse 22 clearly reveals a love relationship.

Some people especially the ladies in the room do not like this passage, but it is part of God's word. And I think that's never really been explained to most very well. And I'm gonna try to do that this morning and hope to get that across.

I was gonna read it in its entirety, but due to time constraints, I'm not going to do that. Starting 1st 22 wives be subject your own husband's. As to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body.

But as the church is subject to Christ, sauce with wives ought to be to their husbands and everything. Husbands love your wives. Just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for says he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the Washington water with the word I'm gonna read it all that he might present himself the church.

Did you catch that transition that he might present to himself, the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless so husbands also ought to love their own wives is their own bodies.

He loves his own wife, loves himself for no one, ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church because we are members of his body. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife.

And the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great, but I'm speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also it's the love, his own wife, even as himself in the wife must see to it that she respects her husband here.

The marriage, relationships, analogy relationship we have with Christ and ladies Sometimes you feel uncomfortable with, but it's because you're not seeing it in that vein, I think, and it's not been used that way by people.

Sometimes when they preached it. This is about our marriage is being an analogy and an example to the world of the church's relationship with Jesus Christ. What is our relationship with Christ? Supposed to be like three things, Aaron, That passage, our relation with crisis would be submissive loving and sacrificial, and all three of them were in that passage.

And our marriages are to be characterized by those things, as Paul says here, because that shows people that we are the bride of Christ. But that lady's let me put your mind at ease just a little bit.

There's two things in here when you talk about submission. He later comes back and says, Respects. I think those two are woven together not into a subservient role. But I'm gonna tell you what a man wants more than anything in your relationship with him.

And that's your respect. And if you refuse to give that to him, then he will never know for sure that you really deeply love it. And ladies need man. They need to know you love them and what Paul is saying here.

It's not about perspective, and though you should, you should do all of these things. But you love them sacrificial e, putting your own self on the line for them at all times. You are to love them with such a deep abiding love that there's never a doubt in their mind that you love them, because with ladies, I believe want more than anything is the security of that relationship.

The man wants the respect. I think the woman wants the security off knowing, without a doubt, my husband loves me. Now I know this is not a perfect world, but that's a Christian marriage. Paul, don't say that's the way all marriages are gonna be.

He says if you're in Christ, you're the bride of Christ And what does Jesus do? What does it talk about in there? Just go back to it 1st 27 that he might present to himself. The church in all her glory have a no spotter wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless men.

Your job in being a leader in the household is to help make sure you're both spiritually going in the direction God wants you to go in. It's not to lord it over somebody and say what you should be scrubbing the floor you should be doing.

That's not what we're talking about, ladies. You should want your men to spiritually lead, and they should spiritually lead to help both of you become more like Christ that make you feel less than person.

It makes both of you more, you catching that. It makes you know what he's supposed to do. If Jesus wants to to present the church in all her glory. Guess what man you're supposed to do. You are supposed to build up your wife and present her to everybody in this world and glorify her and point out her goodness and make people noticed her because of how wonderful she is.

Because that's what Jesus is gonna do for you one day. That's what he's gonna do for his church. He's gonna glorify his church. And if the analogy holds true than men, your job is to love your wife and build her up so much that even when she's not around and you're talking about her who hang on, I feel it too.

It's always positive you always build her up in which you're not around. Don't do it just to score points with her. You do it. I love you. Build her up all the time, even when she's not there. And I'm gonna tell you ladies, if you got a man doing that, you won't have any problem that submits aboard.

Not spiritually, because you'll know that he'll never ask you to do and never treat you in a way that would be disrespectful. I didn't mean to really go all that direction, but I felt I needed to. Our marriages are to reveal the fact that were the bride of Christ and how the husband treats the wife and how the wife responds to the husband is vital to that.

And when we don't, we don't want to hear that this set of verses here, then it makes it harder. Not impossible, but harder for our marriage is to be that an example. And that analogy. I have just celebrated, uh, 24 years with Natalie.

Um, we know it's 24 years because we're, like every other human being we Mark Tom. But Christ is timeless. Our relationship with him does not need to be measured that way because it doesn't matter. Our relationship with him is eternal.

I'm gonna give you just a something is gonna probably set you back for just a moment. Until Natalie I was going to say this so hopefully she didn't walk out the back door. But Natalie is not my forever love.

She's not. We say things like that about our spouses. But it's not true. She is my love on earth, second only to Jesus. One day in heaven, we won't he be married. I mean, Jesus says that in Matthew 20 to 30.

He says it explicitly because we, when we get there collectively, are his bride. We are betrothed to him. We will be married, if you will. To him. We'll have the marriage to blame as we look at just a moment.

So my forever love is Jesus. Because my relationship with him and on Lee my relation with him is eternal. I'm gonna be in heaven with Natalie forever. But our focus, our love, will be directed toward Jesus, then completely without distraction.

That's why on earth I have to practice putting Natalie second behind only Jesus. And she must practice putting me second on Lee to him on Lee. Because he will be our forever love. And that's revealed a revelation.

19. Turn there if you want to. With me. I'm not too far from finishing. Revelation 19 7 through 10. It's your last term this morning. I'm not gonna wait too long when you probably get started. Okay? Revelation 19 Verse seven says, Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to him for the marriage of the land that's Jesus has come.

And his bride, that's the churches will see in a moment has made herself ready. Have we made ourselves ready through the work of discipline he's done in our lives Studying, praying, the seeking, his face, seeking to be righteous rather than unrighteous.

Walking in Christ Verse eight, it was given her to clothe herself and finally and bright clean for the final in. And here it is, is the righteous acts of the saints, which is how I know we're talking about the church.

Here are righteous acts, purifies and prepare us to marry the one who is perfectly righteous verse ni. Then he said to be right. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the lamb. It he said to me, these air true words of God.

Then I fell down at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, Do not do that. I am a fellow servant of yours, going back to our last point, and your brethren who hold the test move. Jesus worship God with the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

So you noticed that that right there what I was saying about Natalie and I She's my love right now. But ultimately, she's my fellow servant one day in heaven and we will give our adoration to him and him alone.

Natalie and I may love each other in this world, but Jesus loves us with a depth that Natalie and I are incapable of. I don't know everything about meddling. She doesn't know everything about me. I don't know everything.

A detail of what happens in her day when she's working. She didn't know anything about Dale. What happens with me when I'm at work shouldn't know everything I say. And I don't know everything she says.

I don't everything she does that she had no everything. I do. But Jesus does every thought and every action is known to him. She and I don't know the deepest part of our souls, but Jesus is the only one.

You don't know the deepest part of my soul. I don't know the deepest part of your soul, but he knows the deepest part of my soul. And he still loves me and calls me his bride and wants to marry me for all of eternity.

He is, as as his bride. Jesus is the lover of our souls and is the only one who can. So the God were Children who need to be raised up to be more like Jesus and be obedient to his word. He is the perfect holy Father that could make that happen.

We're called to be faithful servants after the model of Jesus. He's the perfect master that gives us opportunities every day to honor him with our service. But in the end, we are the bride of Christ, meant to be in an eternal love relationship with one who has redeemed us from our sins and un righteousness.

We're to seek to love him or based on his love for us. Jesus is the perfect bride groom who loves us unconditionally, internally and to whom we can submit ourselves as his bride under the world, these air mixed metaphors that are confusing.

Let me think about. I've just given three metaphors for who we are in Christ, all different ones with different meanings to the world. That's kind of strange, but for the spirit feel believer. We can understand that we're all of these things and that by His grace we've been transformed into Children of God, not Children of Satan, servants of God, not servants of ourselves and lovers of God rather than lovers of this world.

These three things points back to Matthew 16. 18. He has built his church toe overcome. You are a part of his church. He wants his child to succeed. He knows that success comes from submissive service.

And he wants to put you on display like a beautiful bride so that others will take notice of his love for you and your love For him. You are the overcoming child, the overcoming servant and the over coming bride of Christ.

You are in him and he is in you and nothing can stand against you. Your father, your master, your metro fights for you. And if goddess for us who can be against stops. So let's choose to live like we really believe that and show the world how great.

Now, Austin mighty and loving our God is father. We come to you this morning with grateful hearts grateful that we have been adopted and major Children grateful for the opportunity. We have not the responsibility of the opportunity we have to serve you in this world And how you have privilege us with that opportunity to be a part of your redemptive plan in this world.

Lord, we thank you that ultimately we're going to be entering into your presence, enjoying the marriage supper of the lamb. That right now is the church. We are betrothed to you. And your word says you hate divorce.

You are not going to divorce your people. You are goingto usher us in. You are going to marry us in heaven and we will be yours forever Because your love never fails. So, God, who we are to you as we see Children that you're just raising up to be servants toe one day be your eternal bride.

So God help us to act like it helmets to look like it. Help us to live like it and to recognize that Satan cannot stop. This process cannot stop this plan even for a moment unless we let him. So, Lord, as we come to this time closing and this hymn of surrender you're calling us to yourself to reconnect with you if we need to, so that we can remember who we are and allow you to be who you are, innocent through us.

So we pray that you would have your way, that we would let you have your way and that we would walk out of this place today with our heads held high, knowing who we are driving people crazy because they just can't figure out what's happened to us.

But we know it's because we've come to realize who we are and how much we mean to you. Thank you. Because we are these things. Because of you, we pray this in Jesus name, Amen.