Whenever I'm tempted to skip a hard passage, you know, we're going through books of the Bible.
We went through Mark in about two and a half years. Now we're going through 1 Timothy. Whenever I'm tempted to skip and to say, you know, you guys do your own research and I'm reminded of John Calvin. John Calvin pastored a church in Geneva and John Calvin would go verse by verse on Sunday morning through books of the Bible. And John Calvin was going through the book of Psalms with his congregation on a Sunday morning. And he'd gotten up to a Psalm, let's say like 107.3. So that Sunday morning, he preached on Psalm 107.3. Then that week he was arrested by the city fathers of Geneva and exiled for three years. For three years, he's away from his congregation. And then after three years, they invited him back. His first Sunday back in the pulpit, he gets in the pulpit and he says, would you turn in your Bibles to Psalm 107.4?
Basically, we're gonna pick up where we left off three years ago. I love that. Because it reminds me that we've got to preach the whole counsel of God. And look, of all the passages I preach, I've been here about 22 years, I can honestly say this is the hardest passage I've ever preached. It's a challenging passage. So if you're a guest here today, I'm sorry. Come back next week.
It's gonna be great next week. But this is a challenging passage. And it's challenging for two reasons. Number one, not everybody's gonna agree with me on this. My own staff, not everybody on my own staff agrees with me. Not everybody in my own family disagrees with me. I won't tell you who in my family disagrees with me, but we disagree on other things.
Like, was I good enough to marry their daughter? And so we disagree on different things. And so that makes this passage challenging.
But also, if you look at the verse itself, 1 Timothy 2, verse 15, that verse, it's a very hard verse to interpret. So again, come back next week, guests, we'll have a good time at Easter, but we gotta roll up our sleeves and tackle this. You know what I like about this church? Y'all are tough. You don't care about getting down dirty in the Word of God and rolling your sleeves and do some work here.
So let's do that. 1 Timothy chapter two. Last week, we talked about the clothing of Christian women. Then we talked about the character of Christian women. And today we're talking about the calling of a Christian woman. So Paul says in 1 Timothy 2, nine, in like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel. With propriety in moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but which is proper for women professing godliness with good works. Let a woman learn in silence with all submission.
And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression.
Nevertheless, she will be saved in childbearing if they continue. In faith, love, holiness, with self-control. So when we're talking about the calling of God on the life of a woman, Paul first of all clearly says what Christian women are not called to do. Verse 12. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man but to be in silence.
A couple things to remember. Number one is the context. Remember, this is the gathering of the church on Sunday morning. In this gathering on Sunday morning, Paul says, I do not permit a woman to preach, to teach.
That is the job of the man. But that's the context. Sunday morning. Keep in mind, in Paul's day, they didn't have Sunday school, they didn't have vacation Bible school. The context is the gathered assembly on a Sunday morning. And syntactically, that is kind of the order of the Greek, Paul is forbidding two things. Number one, women preaching in the gathered assembly. And then number two, not having authority in the church, but in essence is the one thing. The word of God is our authority.
It's not Chad. It's not a commentary. The word of God is our authority. And so what Paul is saying is the highest source of authority in the church is the word of God. And so when the church is gathered on that Sunday morning, if the highest authority is the word of God to maintain God's divine order of male leadership, the men are to preach and teach on Sunday morning. And by implication, since it was the job of the pastor in the first century to preach and teach the word of God.
Now watch this. If he's saying preaching and teaching the word of God is the highest source of authority, men are to do that. And if a man was the pastor, by virtue, Paul is also saying women are not senior pastors of the church. That's what Paul is saying here.
And it's a very clear teaching of scripture. The question is the question of authority. Who has the authority in the church? And Paul says women leading the church inverts God's authority.
We're a family. We tell everybody as good conservative Bible-believing Christians who leads the family, the men. Well, if we're a representation of that family here at the church, then Paul is saying men are to lead the church. God designed men to lead in the family and in the church.
And when women assume that role, Paul says it inverts that authority. Let me do some teaching here, but I'm going to use the Socratic method. Let's learn by asking questions, okay?
Here's the first question that brings up. Chad, does that mean that women cannot teach at all? They can't teach men if they're professors.
They can't teach men if they teach in the school system. Keep in mind the context is the gathered assembly on Sunday morning. That's the context. Paul would have no problem, I think, with women being professors, women teaching in the public school system. Paul's focus right now is who leads the home, who leads the church.
That's the context. And in fact, in Acts chapter 2, women are encouraged to teach. Teach younger women, not you go girl and how to make your dreams come true. No, no, teach younger women how to be godly women who walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. And in fact, in Acts chapter 18, verse 26, there's actually a woman named Priscilla, have you heard of her before? Who listens to a man named Apollos preach. And she and her husband, Aquila, said, Apollos, come over here.
You did a great job. But there's some parts of your doctrine that we've got to correct a little bit. And so this woman and her husband actually teach Apollos. Is that contradicting scripture? No, because it was done outside of the gathered assembly on Sunday morning. You with me on that? So does that mean women can't teach at all?
No. Paul's just talking about the gathered assembly on Sunday morning. Number two, does this mean that women can't even speak in church at all? That's not what it's saying. In fact, First Corinthians 14, Paul's talking about the church and they gathered together.
He said, look, let women pray in church. Let them prophesy in church. Do you know what I mean by prophesy? Doesn't mean just predict the future.
Jot this definition down. This is from Wayne Grudem. Wayne Grudem was a Baptist, got on fire for the Holy Spirit, and now believes in tongues and prophecy and all that kind of stuff. Wayne Grudem, I love his definition of prophecy. Wayne Grudem says prophecy is simply this, telling something that God spontaneously brings to mind.
That's what Paul's saying. Look, when y'all gathered on Sunday morning, let women pray. Let them prophesy.
And we have a little bit of this. We were going to have a lady during our transition this morning named Christina Bonilla. But Pastor Chris had to come up and kind of talk about the parking thing next week. But when y'all see Christina Bonilla, she's on fire for the Lord. She's excited. She's encouraging. And she says, I believe God's about to do something. God's going to move in your life. God's going to work.
That's prophecy. And Paul says that's perfectly acceptable in the body of Christ. In addition, we have women in our school of ministry here. We are sending women into full-time global missions.
We have women on staff at cross assembly. Paul is simply talking about the lead pastor at the church on that Sunday morning when they gather together to reflect God's divine authority, to reflect God's divine order. Paul's saying it needs to be the man that does that.
Well, here's the third question. Well, isn't this just cultural and contextual? You know what I mean? This is just cultural. Like, Paul is operating in a culture that subjugates women. He doesn't know any better.
We're living in a different kind. So Paul, bless his heart, he is a child of his age. If he were living today, he'd be more enlightened. Two problems with that. Number one, did you know there were priestesses in the Greco-Roman world in Paul's time?
That was normal. Number two, you've got to be very careful with that argument, because do you know who's also using that argument now? Those who are pushing homosexuality in churches. Yes, Paul prohibits homosexuality, but he was just a man of his culture. He was entrapped by his first turn to your world.
If he was here today, he'd be more liberated. So you've got to be very careful of that cultural context. And also, when we talk about the cultural context, I've heard people say, well, the church at Ephesus that Paul was writing about, 1 Timothy, they were struggling with heresy. Women were getting up in the pulpit, and they were preaching heresy. Paul is not saying women can't preach. He's just saying women can't preach heresy.
Okay? You can't just make up context like that that doesn't exist. There's nothing in the scripture.
You don't play the game that way. I'm going to come up with a hypothetical context and read it back into scripture. If Paul wanted to do that, he would have said women can teach, they just can't teach heresy.
So the cultural argument you've got to be very, very careful with. In fact, it's almost like Paul anticipated. The day's going to come when these well-educated, smart Americans are going to think they know better than the word of God, and Paul's like, they're going to use this cultural argument. And here's what the apostle Paul does.
It's very interesting. Verse 13. You see what he's saying? Don't play the cultural argument. Paul says, no. This goes back thousands of years ago to the Garden of Eden. Man was created first, then woman. And Paul says, I'm rooting this in God's divine order.
This is not a cultural argument. I know this is tough. Stick with me. Next week we'll talk about something happy. All right, here we go.
Number four. Chad, aren't you just pulling out one verse to support your misogyny? Here's what I, and I'll be honest with you.
This is where I get a little bit irritated. That when you actually have a bona fide, genuine study of the word of God, and you come up with what I come up with, people say you're misogynistic or you're sexist. Maybe it's not that. Maybe I'm just reading the Bible and I'm doing what I think the Bible's telling me to do, okay? So Chad, aren't you just pulling one verse out to support your misogyny?
Well, no. Because this is addressed other places like 1 Corinthians. Throughout the Bible. The Bible teaches male leadership in the church and in the home. No woman wrote any of the 66 books of the Bible. There's not a woman pastor in the New Testament. There's not a woman elder in the New Testament. Not one of the 12 apostles were women. There's not even a sermon preached by a woman in the New Testament.
This is not an isolated verse. Last week I said, historically, everywhere Christianity is gone, women have been elevated, not subjugated. I would make the case women are being more subjugated in our liberal society today than they were in the New Testament church.
I think in the New Testament church, they were elevated. What about Mary, the mother of Jesus? Great woman. She wasn't a pastor. What about Priscilla? Remember I told you about Priscilla who taught a policy there in Acts 18? Evidently she's a bright, godly woman who knows the Bible. What about Priscilla? Interesting fact, according to 2 Timothy 4.19, do you know who's a member of this very church at Ephesus?
Priscilla. Paul says, even though you have this great, strong, godly woman in your church, I'm just telling you, there is a divine order. Men lead, women support the elite.
Message to leadership. Sixth question, have they been running up on the screen or not? Okay, here's sixth question.
Sixth question is this. Well, Chad, look. I'm a woman. God has called me to be a senior pastor. Why should I listen to you? Shouldn't I listen to God?
The answer to that question is yes. If you listen to me, don't, ma'am, don't listen to me listen to God. God's already said right there, I've not called you to be a senior pastor.
So listen to God, and God has already said what he means in the word. And then number seven, Chad, why is this such a big deal? Why are you even talking about this? Well, I'm talking about it because we're going through 1 Timothy. I'm also talking about it because I just wonder. I have no answers. This might not be a big deal. Now, this is not one of the fundamentals of the faith, like the divinity of Jesus Christ, the resurrection from the dead. I get all that. Is this a big deal?
It might not be. But there's an old saying, you ever heard this before? Before you remove the fences, you need to ask why the fences were put up in the first place. So before we start throwing this out, let me ask some questions. I know you're not supposed to do that today in society.
You're supposed to salute, say yes, ma'am, and do whatever, you know, what they tell you to do. I know you're not supposed to question, but let me ask you a couple questions. Number one, is our society better and families happier since we've re-engineered the roles of mother and father and husband and wife? Are we better off now?
Just a question. Number two, could this be causing our gender confusion in the culture? The church is the moral compass of the society. If we're confused about gender roles, society is going to be confused about gender roles. And when you teach young people that there are no such thing as gender roles, don't be surprised if they think there are no such thing as gender roles.
Just a question. Number three, could this be what is causing the rise of the acceptance of homosexuality in America, in our churches? The denominations that pushed women pastors in the 1970s and 1980s most aggressively are the ones that now accept homosexuality because, listen to me, Dr. Al Mohler at Southern Seminary makes this case. He says the very arguments you can use to justify women pastors, even though the scripture says this, they are the very same arguments you can use to justify homosexuality.
They're the same arguments. And so what we saw in the 1970s and 80s were some denominations aggressively pushing this and now those are the denominations that are embracing homosexuality. If you can liberate women with your theology by going around scripture, why not liberate gays and lesbians? And the trajectory is now to the point, I don't know if you've read about this, where the Presbyterian Church USA, they're having their national gathering in Salt Lake City this summer, and in Salt Lake City, they're gonna be voting on a measure that says this.
If you want ordination in the Presbyterian denomination and you don't believe in the LGBTQ agenda, according to our bylaws, you can't get ordained in our denomination. That's a crazy trajectory that we're on as Christians in America. Third question is could this be why some denominations are declining? In denominations where women are preaching, people are leaving.
Great example is the Church of England. In 1994, the Church of England welcomed its first female priests and they began to push the feminist agenda. 10 years later, the Church of England was ordaining more women than men.
Men stopped attending, the denomination's bottomed out, and now the Church of England is quickly becoming a church of women by women and for women. And so Paul says, I wanna give you a very clear scriptural mandate based on the created order. Men, I want you to lead the church.
But then he says this. Paul then talks about what women are called to do. And we see that in a very difficult verse. Look at the next verse, verse 15. Nevertheless, she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, holiness, and self-control. What does that mean? Women will be saved in childbearing? What in the world's he talking about? There's some different interpretations. Number one, is Paul saying, women, you're gonna be saved and you're gonna go to heaven by having babies.
Is that what he's saying? So here's the problem with that. Number one, that contradicts what the Bible teaches, that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone and not of works.
It contradicts that. And then number two, what about all the godly women who can't have babies? They're gonna go sizzle in hell for all eternity? So there's a problem with that interpretation. Second interpretation is, well, maybe the Apostle Paul is talking about Jesus. Like, through women, through the female gender, Jesus is going to come and he'll die for our sins and save us all. That seems to be a stretch. Or is he saying that, you know, in Paul's day, a lot of women died delivering.
Did you know that? Is the Apostle Paul when he says, women will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith and love, is he saying if you're a godly woman, you won't die in childbirth? God's gonna deliver you through childbirth.
What about all the godly women who did die in childbirth? So there's another way to look at this. The more I dig this, the more I dig this into the word of God, the more I like this.
Here's the interpretation I like. I want you to look at that verse again. She shall be saved in childbearing. The key to understanding that verse, to understand two words, saved, what does saved mean? And childbearing. So what does saved mean?
Let's start with that one. Saved doesn't always mean, you know, repeat the sinner's prayer and when you die, you'll be saved, you'll go to heaven. Like I asked you, when'd you get saved? I got saved when I was nine years old. The Bible talks about that a lot, but saved can also be used in another sense.
And in fact, it's amazing how many times this sense is used in the New Testament. Saved can mean protected, preserved. And all over the letters of Paul, we talk about people being saved from false doctrine, saved from error, in places like 2 Timothy 4.18, Paul talks about being saved from evil influences like Satan. And so based on this, I think what Paul means in 1 Timothy 5.15, women will be saved, he's saying this, women will be protected from, they're gonna be protected from evil, from Satan, from wickedness. They're gonna be protected from this temptation to abandon their call and to be something that they're not. They're gonna be saved, protected from Satan, through what?
Through childbearing. Now, what is that word, childbearing? Now again, let's dig deeper into the scripture. There's a term called analogia scriptura. Scripture is the best interpreter of scripture.
So if you wanna know what a word means, try to find where that word is used elsewhere, preferably in the same book. And fortunately for us, Paul uses that word, childbearing, in 1 Timothy. Turn there to 1 Timothy chapter five, verse 14.
1 Timothy 5.14. So saved, they're gonna be saved, that means women are gonna be protected, protected from Satan, from the demonic, from abandoning their call. They are going to be protected through childbearing. What does it mean by childbearing? 1 Timothy 5.14, Paul says, Therefore I desire that younger widows marry, bear children, same word right there, that's the word, bear children, manage the house, give no opportunity for the adversary to speak reproachfully, for some have already turned aside after Satan. Now watch this, in this passage, childbearing, women will bear children, that is symbolic for a whole lot of other things.
Being women who take care of their families, being women who live godly lives, do you see that? Childbearing is just symbolic of something big. In fact, y'all remember this, I knew there was a, I couldn't remember this word, so I looked it up. And I've pronounced it wrong for years, but y'all remember back in maybe high school English, there was a literary device called synoptic-y, you ever heard of that, synoptic-y?
Synoptic-y means this, it's where the part is used to represent the whole. Like if you were to tell me, Chad, I went out and I bought me some new wheels this past week. Probably doesn't mean you went out and bought four brand new Michelin tires. When you tell me, Chad, I bought some wheels this week, wheels represents what?
A car, your vehicle. And that's probably what Paul's doing here. Childbearing, according to this verse I just read, is representative of something bigger, and that's just being a woman, a God, who loves Jesus and walks with the Lord. And it's a strong, dignified, godly woman that walks with clean hands and a pure heart. Paul says childbearing, but what he means by childbearing is be a woman of God. That means you ladies in the church who are women of God but you've never married or you've never had children, you are still within your biblical parameters. Because you are godly women who love the Lord Jesus, and even though you may not have had any biological children, Titus 2 says you can speak into the lives of younger ladies in our church and raise up a new generation of godly women who are gonna change this world for Jesus Christ.
Does that make sense? And so you put this together, what Paul is saying is women will be saved through childbearing, probably means this, women will be protected from Satan and wickedness by not trying to take over the role of men in the family and in the church, but instead I'm focusing on God's distinctive role and calling for their lives. And in that passage I just read you, verse 15 says if you start to step out of that and say I'm not satisfied with being the woman that God has called me to be, I want his role, I want his position. Verse 15 says now it's the enemy working in your life. What Paul is saying to godly women is godly women with children, without children, married, unmarried, you have a call on your life, a beautiful, powerful calling.
In Old Testament terms, don't trade that in, don't trade your birthright in for a bowl of soup. Be the woman God's called you to be. I was watching, it broke my heart, this lady, she and her husband pastored a church and she was brash, dressed brash, did the speaking tour, in your face, kinda raunchy, almost like a charismatic version of Rosie O'Donnell, okay? And I watched as that whole relationship just started to collapse. And now I'm seeing a broken woman who's now saying I now want to fulfill my call to be a strong, godly woman.
And it's so sad that all this mess got her to that point. Then I compare that lady to Elizabeth Elliot. Y'all remember Elizabeth Elliot? She and her husband were missionaries in Ecuador and her husband, Jim Elliot, goes to minister to the Alka Indians and he is killed and Elizabeth Elliot stays and raises kids in that jungle who are world changers for Jesus Christ and when I would listen to her speak and talk, there's this quiet, strong dignity about her.
Why would you wanna trade that for that? Paul says no, God has given you women a beautiful, divine calling on your life. Stop embracing the curse.
We talked about this two weeks ago. The curse is now women will want the roles of men and men will be tempted to be vicious toward and subjugate women. And Paul's saying you women who want the roles of men, you are embracing the curse. Why don't you embrace the call that God has given you to be a strong woman of God? I'm just telling you, church, there is a deep, powerful, mystical influence that women and mothers have that I can't explain.
I do know this, fathers don't have that. Masculine leadership is a powerful force that brings order to families and society, that's great, but feminine leadership brings a deep, emotional, I'm gonna use this word again even though it sounds weird, mystical power, it's a power I can't understand. And Paul says embrace that, don't run from that. I'm not here today to get into the thing of well, should women work outside the homes?
That's not my point today. My point is this, you as a woman of God have a beautiful divine call, embrace that call, don't run from that call. And don't let society force you into a calling that you don't want. Vivian Gornick, feminist scholar at the University of Illinois said quote, being a housewife is an illegitimate profession, the heart of feminism is to change that.
That's our world system right there. There's a prominent speaker at a Christian convocation that a family member of mine went to several years ago, this prominent charismatic Christian speaker was at a kind of a Baptist school and she said at this convocation quote, come on ladies, you can do better than just staying at home and raising children, you can do better than that. What does that tell a young woman who's read Titus chapter two and say yeah, but I wanna stay home and I wanna raise my children.
What does it tell a young woman like that? I was talking to one pastor or listening to one pastor who said his wife felt called to be a stay at home mother and so she had these little kids and she's there to raise these kids to love the Lord Jesus, she's doing her best to fulfill that Titus two mandate. And he said men usually, but a lot of women would come up and ask this stay at home mom the one question you never ask a stay at home mom which is this, what do you do all day? He said my wife got asked that all the time and she got so tired of people asking her what do you actually do, here's her answer. When people ask now what do you actually do, she'd say well I am socializing two homo sapiens into the dominant values of the Judeo-Christian tradition in order that they might be instruments for the transformation of the social order into the kind of eschatological utopia that God willed from the beginning of creation.
And then she would ask, and what do you do? The History Channel would have these documentaries of great women, but on the History Channel there'd be 55 minutes of the great thing that this female prime minister would do, how she led the country and in 30 seconds of oh and somehow she found time to raise a family. In God's order he inverts that and says no History Channel let's spend 55 minutes talking about what kind of godly mother she was, how she influenced her own children, and then let's spend 20 seconds oh yeah incidentally she was the prime minister of this country. I remember going to a promise keeper's rally years ago, 20,000 men in one place and the speaker asked the men something I wanna ask you women. He said you men wanna be CEOs, you wanna make money, you wanna make a name for yourself, you wanna do something great. He said this, what if the only reason God put you on planet Earth was to raise those three kids to love the Lord Jesus Christ and let them change the world for Jesus? And I'm asking some of you ladies as well, what if God did not put you here to make a name for yourself and write books and go on a speaking tour? What if the reason God put you here on planet Earth was to raise a generation who's gonna love the Lord Jesus and walk with clean hands and a pure heart?
I wanna say it again, there's something mystical, something powerful about the influence of a godly woman I can't understand, you women have that power. We see this on the cross, Jesus is dying on the cross, he is in excruciating pain, do you know the word excruciating means from the cross? He is in physical pain that you can't imagine but more painful than that, he is in spiritual pain as he feels the collective guilt of the millions of people who would ever believe in him being just put on him. He is fighting the forces of Satan, the cross is the pivotal event around which all of human history revolves. Do you know it's not the second coming? The event around which all history revolves has already taken place, it's the cross of Jesus Christ. So Jesus is here on the cross, dying for sins, battling demons, this is the pivotal event of history. Jesus takes a few seconds and he looks down at the foot of the cross and his mama's standing right there. Do you know what Jesus does? He looks at John, he says John I'm worried about my mama. When I'm dying, when I'm gone, take care of my mom.
Explain that to me, explain the power of a woman that is so strong that you take time out from dying for the sins of humanity saying I just want to make sure my mom's taken care of. Second church I ever pastored. We went to see that movie Saving Private Ryan. You remember when that movie came out? Everybody's talking about how powerful Saving Private Ryan was, it's the most realistic war movie of all time. This is years ago, I was in my 20s and there's a lot of World War II veterans in my community. And so they said, they said man let's get together, let's go see Saving Private Ryan together. And I wanted to take them because I knew exactly what a lot of those guys had been through in World War II because I played Call of Duty on the Xbox. And so I knew what they'd gone through.
And so we all gathered in the church van. I was actually a little bit worried. I was like now what if these guys go PTSD on me and go crazy in the movie theater, but they didn't. We go see Saving Private Ryan and when we leave it's kind of quiet for a little while. And I asked the question, I said was that movie accurate?
It is pretty accurate. And I said, what stood out to you? And one of these guys said, I'll tell you what stood out to me, remember that one scene where that guy's been shot and he's dying and he cries out for his mama? I was like yeah, that was bad. He said, I saw that happen several times in World War II.
Another guy said I saw it, another guy said I saw it. It's big old tough, gruff Marines with machine guns, storming the beaches, we're gonna kill the enemy. They're tough and gruff and then they get hit. This guy said I would watch him hit the ground and while they're bleeding out, they'd revert to being five year old boys and they start crying for their mama.
My last breath, I just want my mom. That's the kind of power I'm talking about where grown men with their dying breath say that woman influenced me and I'm gonna ask you again, ladies, why would you trade that influence for anything in the world? You are women of God, you are strong women of God, destined to change this world for the Lord Jesus Christ in God's way and in God's method. That's what you're called to do. Can you stand right now?
Let me do what I did last week. Let me pray over y'all. Because Lord, the enemy is coming against women in our society. My heart breaks for them. Father, the enemy points to women on the billboard and say why aren't you more like that? The women presents them, the world presents them with an unrealistic standard of beauty, Father, that they can ever fulfill.
The expectations coming at them are driving them crazy. Father, here's my prayer for the women of cross assembly. Make them strong, quiet, bold, confident women of God who walk with clean hands and a pure heart, who influence the next generation of Jesus Christ.
Father, shut their ears to the lies and the siren call of Satan and open their ears to the voice of the Holy Spirit saying this is the way, walk therein in the name of Jesus. Church, I like to do this. We've talked about maybe some controversial issues like this or abortion or whatever. I like to get our minds back from the fringes and put our eyes back on Jesus. Because it is not all about gender roles. It's not all about pro-life.
It's not all about voting this way. It's all about Jesus. And when Jesus becomes the center, everything else just kind of works itself out. I like how the old hymn writer put it. When we turn our eyes upon Jesus and look full in his wonderful face, the things of the earth grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and his grace. Let's go, when you lift up your hands right now and lift up your voices, and let's just worship Jesus for a few moments. And worthy, worthy, worthy Lord, and at the glance of glory, we sing once more, worthy, worthy, worthy Lord, forever, forever we sing. Worthy, worthy, worthy Lord, and at the glimpse of glory, we sing once more, worthy, worthy, worthy Lord, forever, forever we sing. Worthy, worthy, worthy Lord, and at the glimpse of glory, we sing once more, worthy, worthy, worthy Lord, forever, forever we sing.
Worthy, worthy, worthy Lord, and at the glimpse of glory, we sing once more, worthy, worthy, worthy Lord, forever. Hey, yes, you are Jesus, King of Kings. Yes, Jesus, Jesus, my destiny. Oh, yes, Jesus, King of Kings.
Yes, Jesus, my destiny. So God knows you get a lot of negative stuff hitting you all week long. You turn on the news, it's negative. You listen to your co-workers, it's negative.
You're on Facebook, so much is chewing you out, it's negative. And God says, you know, Aaron, every now and then, my people need to hear another voice. And it's my voice telling them how I really feel about them, just to gather them together and speak this over them. Which means the Lord bless you, not curse you. The Lord bless you and keep you. I'm not holding on to Jesus. Jesus is holding on to me. The Lord bless you, keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you.
That means when Jesus thinks about you, he doesn't frown, he smiles. The Lord bless you, keep you, make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And the Lord turn his countenance, not his back, his countenance to you and give you shalom, peace, wholeness, mind, body, soul, spirit. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen and amen. God bless you, beloved. Let's go change this world for Jesus Christ.
