Grafted into the Olive Tree: Unity in Faith

Some Bibles have it starting, the paragraph starts with 16, and some it starts with 17. But it kind of leads us into 17, so that's why the transition is so smooth, and that's why it looks different to some people. He's talking about the impact of a small group in the people of Israel on the whole impact of the nation of Israel. And here he says, if the part of the dough offered as first fruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy. Part of the dough, if the root is holy, so are the branches. He's talking about the impact of the patriarchs on the people of Israel. If the patriarchs are faithful to God, then all the nation of Israel has an impact from that start of the patriarchs. So, in this instance, he's talking about the small part influencing the larger part of the community. He's doing this to begin to talk at greater length about the image of the tree with regard to Israel. The root of the tree and the branches of the tree. So, he launches then in verse 17, if some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others, and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root. He's talking about Israel as a tree. The image is using Israel as an olive tree. He's using the idea that the olive tree is growing, the branches on the tree have become unfruitful, and some branches are grafted in. Some of the branches have been broken off. He's indicating a couple of things. One is by saying some of the branches, he's indicating that the Jewish nation itself was not rejected by God. He's talked about this remnant idea before. There is a remnant left of faithful people in the nation of Israel. God has not turned his back on the whole nation. Then he uses the image of being broken off. The branches have been broken off. It's passive. So, it's something God has been doing, and its emphasis is on God doing the breaking. God has broken off branches from the olive tree. The olive tree, the root, the patriarchs, the tree stands for the people who are faithful to God. The remnant of the tree, the remnant is the tree, and each of those branches that have been unfaithful and unbelieving is broken off so that what is left is the tree of those in the Jewish nation who were faithful to God. He's talked a lot about in the past chapters about how people have turned away from God and have been unfaithful to God and unbelieving in response to him, and how they had looked at certain things like circumcision as a way by saying, we are now Jewish because of this act of circumcision. We are now Jewish because of our heritage, our blood heritage. Now, he's talking about these people who wanted to receive God's pleasure as a result of their keeping obedience to the law, so that they were doing good deeds hoping to earn God's approval. Now, he talks about these people as the ones being broken off from the tree because they lacked the faith of Abraham. The issue that he raises is, you receive, you find life with God as a result of your trust or your faith in him. And this remnant of people are those who have maintained the same kind of faith that Abraham had, trusting God, placing your life in his hands, living in obedience to what he asks of you. This identifies the real Israel, those who have been faithful to God. Now, in this instance he's saying, some of the branches have been broken off, the remnant is left, and you, talking to the Gentiles, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others. He uses the language of horticulture to describe what is taking place. Gentiles now have been opened up to this gospel from Christ, and they have been welcomed in the kingdom of God, and now they are grafted on the tree, so that they receive the benefit of the Jewish nation in the tree. What Paul is talking about to the Gentiles, and he's addressing the Gentiles in this story, he's saying to them, you have received the benefits of what God has done, but never forget that you're grafted onto this tree, the Jewish tree, and the roots of the patriarchs are feeding the tree, and you are receiving the benefit from the tree. It's very easy for a lot of people to think of the Christian faith in terms of the New Testament. We follow the New Testament, but Paul makes extensive case here for the issue that there can be no Christian apart from the Jewish heritage. If you take the Gentile and graft it onto anything, it has to have that source. Paul is helping us to understand that we're a part of a great stream of history. There's people who think, you know, that the Jewish nation started and then they ended, and now we have the Christian community after that, as if there were two separate and distinct groups. Paul's idea is far from that. God has not given up on the call that he gave to the Jewish people. They are still the source of what we have in the New Testament. They're the source of all that we understand. God has recognized that the Jewish people failed in their act of faithfulness toward God, and their trust in him, and depended instead for the outside circumstances, like circumcision, and their keeping the law, or being born from Jewish heritage. All of those things they counted on apart from trust, apart from faith in God. And there they have been broken off of the tree, because they have not been joined in the same way that Abraham was. The root of the tree. Now, what Paul is describing is, for these Gentile Christians he's addressing, I don't want you to think, because of what I've said about the Jews, that they depended on the external acts of work, or external circumcision, for a description or a way of expressing the fact that they are connected to God. I've said that those things didn't work, and that God did not approve of that. I don't want you to think that it means he's done away with everything that he started by calling Israel in his covenant with Abraham. What God is doing is a continuation of this great stream of history. There are ideas in Christian thinking that says the church replaces Israel in God's plan. So you have Israel, then you have Christ coming, and then you have the Christ era. And in this Christ era, then the Gentiles now become the focus of God's work. Paul's image here does away completely with that. This is one stream of God's great work in history. The patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the root of all of this. The people who are faithful to have the faith of Abraham, of the Jewish nation, are the trunk of this tree, and the limbs of the tree. And when he comes to talking about the Gentiles, he says, You have been grafted into this tree so that you take the benefit of the root, the holy root. It now feeds you. It now connects to you so that you are now an integral part of what God is doing. There is no break and a change. It is all one continuous effort on God's part. I think it's easy for us to look at the New Testament and see a different kind of picture of what it means to be following God. But Jesus made it clear that not one single thing would be removed from the law. It would be fulfilled. What God's intention was, one great stream of history. He admits, acknowledges, that these people who were part of this great movement because of their failure to have faith and trust God are now broken off. They have been broken off. And though the Gentiles were not a part of that heritage, he calls them a wild olive shoot. Now wild olives were not productive. If you had a wild olive tree, it didn't make very many olives. So olives weren't very good. You come from this vintage in which there is not productivity. But God is grafting you onto this great stream or this tree so that you now become a part of this great productive history that God brings to us. Having been grafted in among others, that is the Jewish limbs are still there. It's not that they've been broken off and the Gentiles have been taken their place. It's that those limbs are still there from the Jewish community and the Gentiles are grafted in among them and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root. Our heritage, the covenant God makes with us is the very same covenant he made with Abraham. When I talk about this covenant with God and describe what he promised Abraham, I will guide you, take you to the land of promise. I will provide for you. There you'll have a land, a home where you can live. I will protect you. Your enemies will be my enemies. Your friends will be my friends. And I'll make you as the sands of the sea, a great influence for history. That same covenant promise is what was given to the followers of Jesus. It hasn't changed. God's intention is that the great stream of history that he started has been broadened now. Not only is it just this tree, this Jewish tree, but now he's grafted into that Gentiles with no heritage to the past, but now the spiritual nourishment that we get is this from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Jeremiah, Isaiah. All this great stream of history now feeds us. So we have the benefit of all of that and become a part of this community of faith that stretches back to the very beginning with Abraham. Now, two things Paul is concerned about. He's talked about, for one thing, that the Gentiles will look at this and say, OK, God broke these limbs off and now we've been replaced there. And there is the element that might come of arrogance and pride. The Jewish limbs have been broken off, Gentiles have been attached to it, and now we can say we have their place. We are the part of the chosen people of God. While all that's true, it's not true that God has turned his back on them. So he starts in verse 18 by addressing this issue with the Gentiles. He's already addressed this with the Jews, with their arrogance of feeling they're the only people of God, seeing their election as if they were special in God's eyes and everyone else was less valuable than they are. Now he addressed that. Do not boast over those branches, that is, the branches that have been broken off. The Gentiles, he addresses, he says, you're not to look at what's taken place and think that somehow or other it makes you better or makes you superior to those whose branches have been broken off. If you do, consider this. You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You are dependent on all of the Jewish tradition in history to feed what knowledge you have of God, what understanding you have of his nature. All the stories of the Old Testament help us to understand the very nature of God himself. All the laws of the Old Testament help us understand what God is like, what he approves of and what he disapproves of. He shows us through all of these things his nature, his character, and his purpose. So understand that everything you know about God is dependent on these things, these things that our spiritual ancestors have given to us. We're not to be able to say that we are better than the Jews whose branches were broken off, but to understand that we are dependent on what's passed on before us for the spiritual consideration and the spiritual life that we have. You will say then, branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in. Here's that issue of arrogance. Now Paul has addressed that with the Jews in their arrogant spirit toward the Gentiles. Now he has to say to the Gentiles in the same church, just as I've said the Jews made a great mistake with their arrogance, so you stand the temptation of making a great mistake with your own arrogance too. If you think about how people think religiously, spiritually in the world, we think Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Jew, and then Christian, as if they were distinctions, separate distinctions. Paul would not have any of that, for there is this great connection he sees so that what the Christian faith is is a continuation of what was really the heart of the Jewish nation. So awareness in our part of the dependence we have is critical to him. Understanding the Old Testament is critical for us because it is the source of our nourishment. It is the source of the strength that we have, the understanding we have of God. The branches broken off so I could be grafted in leads a person to feel like there is something superior about me. Granted, he says in verse 20, but they were broken off because of unbelief and you stand by faith. Lest you think that there is something about you that is superior, you're falling into the same trap that the Jewish people fell into. Thinking that somehow or other you have a special standing with God, he's warning them that the very danger that the Jews fell into also tempts them to feel that there is something special about them, that they have earned this place to be grafted into this trunk of the tree. He made it clear when he talked to the Jews that the reality was it is by grace of God and by our faith that God receives us and accepts us. There's no other basis for that. So if we think that somehow or other the Jews have been pushed aside or pushed down and now the Gentile Christians take the place as the center of God's kingdom, he says that's not true. If you start down that road, you will fall into the same trap that the Jews fell into. They were broken off because of unbelief. And you stand where you are because of your trust in Christ. Now remember, the trust or faith that we have is not something we earn, but it is a catalyst that allows God to forgive us. And so the faith is one dimension of our trust in God and his response to that trust is to give us, standing with him, redemption, salvation. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. He gives a serious warning to us that the traps that the Jews fell into are very, very tempting to everyone. Now, the Jews had two problems. One is they thought that God's election for them somehow or other made them stand in a better standing in the world, that they were special people, that they had special approach to God. And they looked down on other people. They thought that their Jewish standing could be identified with the external things, with keeping the law, making sure that they did everything the law asked them to do. Circumcision would mark them as followers of God. And then their Jewish blood heritage. They depended on these things to say that they were children of God. As Paul talked about earlier in the book of Romans, he talked about saying to them, you count on these external things to give you standing with God, but it's not true. You stand, as Gentiles, in danger of the very same thing. If you look around and you listen to people and you talk to them about their faith, and you say to them, do you think you're going to go to heaven? What is a common response that people give about that? Hope so? If you say, why do you hope so, what would they say? Isn't that works? Exactly the same thing that the Jewish people fell into. There are many people who consider themselves Christians who think that their good deeds qualify them to go to heaven. That their good deeds qualify them to be Christians. What are some other things that you hear people say that they mark them as a believer, Christian? If you were to say to people, are you a Christian? They said, yes. And you said, why do you think you're a Christian? What might they say? I go to church. Another act, external obedience. I mean, anybody can go to church. The worst person in the world can go to church every Sunday. Satan himself is regular in church. Hardly ever misses a service. Doesn't mean he's part of the kingdom of God. In fact, he's the opposite of that. You think of another? I've been baptized. You see, for many people, baptism is the same as circumcision for the Jews. Because it's the external mark that says, this act will get me in the kingdom. So, anyone can be baptized. I mean, you can put water on anybody. You can put them in water, dunk them in water. And when a person counts on an external action like circumcision, even though they're within the Christian community, they're making the same mistake that the Jewish people make. You're looking for something other than faith. And trust that Abraham had to give you a standing with God. You think of another one that people have? Good person? Pardon? That's not going to work. Sometimes people... Pardon? Okay. I've done service for God. I've done things that God said I should do. In my efforts at being good, teaching Sunday school, witnessing, preaching, being a missionary, all of those things, if they become the basis on which you think you've earned God's forgiveness, then you find your failure. And all of those things are true in the Christian community. I'm a church member. I've been baptized. I do good things. I work in the church. Jesus, when he talked about judgment, discounted all of those. And it's not that they're not good, but they're doing the very same thing that the Jewish people did. Counting on something other than the faith of Abraham to open God's presence in their life. So Paul is warning Gentiles, the Christian community, don't fall into the trap that the Jewish people fell into. Now, why would these things attract us? If we see this taking place, why do the same kind of things attract us? Well, because they give us a way to claim a special standing with God that allows us to be in control of the circumstance and the situation. I can do the good deeds that I want to do. I can go to church when I want to. I can help people when I want to. I don't mind getting baptized. It wasn't a big deal. And I don't mind doing that. And if that gets me into heaven, then, see, I'm in control of this whole circumstance. The failure to have faith in God is easy to fall into. Because when you say to God, I give you my life, He will control your life and you will face circumstances that are difficult and hard. Now, what Paul is warning the Gentiles, those of us Gentiles, is that you can fall into the same trap the Jews had. God wants everyone to have trust in Him, to place their life in His hands. Verse 22, he says, Consider, therefore, the kindness and sternness of God. Sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you. God has both sternness and He has kindness. Someone was telling me the other day, I think it was Butcher Ames, he was telling me the other day that his daughter was going to a counselor of some kind and going through difficult times. And so he had to go for the counseling. And she was telling him that he should never have disciplined his daughter. And I think he had done some corporal punishment on her, you know, a spanked her or something. And the counselor said, You should never do that. And the counselor said to him then, You say you're a Christian? A Christian always acts in love. And you think Jesus would want you to spank your daughter? You see, there's a common conception around that Jesus, because of His love, never is stern or harsh or judgmental. But the Bible is clear that God does judge us. He does evaluate our lives. It's not just that God is loving, so He overlooks all of our sin. He overlooks our rebellion. He overlooks our lifestyle. God is both stern, filled with kindness at the same time. It is kind, you see, to discipline people. And in your job, Terry, if you hire somebody to work out there on the electric line, and they don't behave themselves and take all the safety precautions, what will happen to them? And if you see somebody consistently short-cutting the rules that they should have, you might fire them to save their life. Now, if you go talk to someone and say, Terry's a mean guy, he fired me, that might sound like you did something wrong. But you might have done that to say, this person cannot live by the rules that are necessary to be able to live and work in this job. God looks at us in this world, and He knows what it takes to be able to live as we ought to. And He disciplines us. He disciplines His children to help us understand the things that we must do to be able to find life in all of its fullness, especially when we have a covenant relationship with Him. I give myself to you. God says, okay, I'm going to make you My child so that you'll be successful. When you stray off the line, He deals with you sternly. Consider, therefore, the kindness and the sternness of God. He looks back on the Jewish nation. He was stern with them. He had plenty of grace and plenty of mercy, but when the time came when it was necessary for Him to act, He always did in their best interest. Sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you. Now, remember, the falling, the limb broken off, was not the result of their faithfulness. It was the result of them failing to act in faith toward God. He broke that limb off, not because He was mean, but because the tree could not produce the fruit that it needed to produce if the branch was indeed dead. And so when you're grazing a plant and you have a branch that's bad, you break it off so that the food goes to the rest of the branches and it's fruitful. My uncle used to raise tomatoes, and I learned from him about how they raised these big tomatoes, and he would have tomatoes on a pole and a big field of them, and they would go through, and every time a limb goes out on a tomato, there comes what they call a sucker right in that joint, and it's out of that sucker that tomatoes will be produced. And if your plant grows so that you have 50 of those suckers, then all of the food goes into each of those little parts, and the small tomatoes are going to produce. So part of their job was to go through the field and break those suckers off after the first layer. When it came to the next, you break those suckers off, so they would just produce one cluster of tomatoes on the bottom, one up here, and one at the top. And when the tomatoes were ready, they were big tomatoes, and they shipped them all over the country. But if you let the plant just go, it produces a lot of tomatoes that are really small and not as valuable as they could be. Pruning is a valuable way by which you can make a plant grow to its maximum productivity. God looks at his people in the same way. The branches that are dead because they have no faith and trust are broken off. Jesus talked about a parable where the guy would break all the branches off and throw them in a pile and burn them because they're worthless when they're not productive. So he's drawing attention to God. The sternness to those who fell, but the kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. This is a very interesting phrase. The kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Now what he's talking about is, when he mentions kindness here, he's talking about this life of faith that causes God to react to you as your Lord, your Redeemer, and your Master. He's saying to the Gentiles, it's possible for you to begin this road in faith or kindness to God and stray away from it. He's using this as the same example that was true about the Jews. They started out faithful to the Lord, but you read all the stories in the Old Testament, and pretty soon they begin to drift away from God, and he would have to bring his judgment on them. Just as God continued to bring his judgment on people who started in this life of faith, but abandoned it, then so God will also come to you in judgment. Now there's a big debate about what this might mean. There's a lot of, Carl, I've heard you say several times about leaving the once saved, always saved. And that's a kind of idea that some people use to talk about what it means to be a Christian. The idea from Calvinism that once you are saved, you're saved forever, and nothing can interfere with that. And then there's another view that says, well, once you can be saved, but you can make a choice to move away from God. And that's found in Hebrews chapter 6, people point to that. It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, and who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the Word of God, and the powers of the coming age. If they fall away to be brought back to repentance. Hear that, it's impossible for those who once have been enlightened, received the Holy Spirit, tasted of the heavenly gift, salvation, who shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the work of God, God's work in their life, and the powers of the age to come, the Holy Spirit, if they fall away to be brought back to repentance. Because to their loss, they are crucifying the Son of God all over again, and subjecting Him to public disgrace. Some people read that and say, it means that you can start out in your Christian life, but if you don't continue in it, then you're lost again, and you can never be saved again. It's a difficult argument, because if you say to someone, well, you started out in your Christian life, but you turned your back on God, and now you're lost again, you could just as well say, your faith in the beginning wasn't real faith. If you had real faith, you would have persevered to the end. I don't know how you ever settle that issue, but what the Bible says is, genuine trust in God, that He requires of you, is that you start out in this life of trust, and continue it all the way to the end. As Paul describes it here, he says, consider therefore the kindness and the sternness of God. Sternness to those who fell, remember why they fell, they didn't have trust and faith in God, but kindness to you. He's talking to Gentile Christians, who have come to this relationship of kindness with God, because of their faith. That kindness to you, provided that you continue in His kindness. Otherwise, you will also be cut off. It's not clear, whether someone who has this experience, never really had faith in the beginning, or if they turned their back somewhere along the way on God. What is clear, is that someone who does not come to the end, with this life of faith, will not make it to heaven. So you have people who come and make a profession of faith, as a young adult, or a young child even, who then live their life completely outside of faith and trust in God. They look back on their life and say, I'm going to go to heaven, because when I was a child, I made a commitment of my life to Christ. But they're living completely outside of that life of faith. They're counting on this external baptism, good works, and baptism is a good work. I do what God says I should do in the Bible, therefore I'm saved. I've told this story several times, because it's such a graphic thing to me, about the lady that I was in a hospital visiting. There was a show on TV. It was a lady who was the head of the prostitutes union. She was talking about how prostitutes ought to be recognized, and ought to be treated with fairness, ought to have job benefits, ought to have health care, whatever else they needed. The guy who was interviewing her said, Are you religious at all? She said, Oh yeah, I'm a Christian. He said, You're a Christian? She said, Yeah. Well, what makes you think that? She said, Well, when I was just a child, I was baptized in a Southern Baptist church, and once saved, always saved. So I know that when I die, I'm going to go to heaven, because of what I did then. You see, it's so absurd to believe that the simple act of being baptized, and living your life doing exactly the opposite things that God tells you you should do, will allow you to count on that act of baptism as a way of entering into eternal life forever. What Paul is saying to the Gentiles, is the same thing he said to the Jews. You can't count on anything to bring you into a relationship with God, except absolute, total trust in Him. And it doesn't matter what your doctrine is about salvation. If a person says, I've given my life to Christ, and then begins to live a life different than Christ wants them to live. I don't mean making mistakes. I don't mean having difficulty, or times that you fail. But just completely leaving God out of the picture in your life. Making all the decisions in your life based on what you want, and what you want to accomplish. Ignoring God. You cannot allow anyone to think that they will find eternity with God under that scenario. I want to warn you, he said, that you'll get to the place with arrogance, where you think these external things will guarantee you a place with God. They will not. For just as you do not continue in His kindness, otherwise you will be cut off. Just like the branches that I talked about were cut off. God is not going to tolerate with Gentiles, the absence of faith, any more than He did with the Jews. The same requirements are made for everyone. Now, I want to help you understand, I'm not saying that when someone starts becoming a follower of Christ, if they sin, it means they're going to hell. I'm saying that a person has to consciously say to God, I do not want to obey you. Now, sometimes a person can even say those words, and in their spiritual immaturity, God understands their heart and where they're at. Everybody that's raised a child, everybody that's raised a child, has had that child sometimes look them in the face and say, I hate you, I don't want to be your child, and I don't want anything to do with you, I wish I had another mommy or daddy. They say that because something's happened in their life that they don't like. There are people who place their faith and trust in Christ, and in their immaturity, sometimes say that to God. We can't be the judge of those things, but God certainly is. He deals with people, and when He knows that they, of their own mind, have chosen to say, I refuse to be obedient in faith to God, their experience of saying they trusted God was really not true. That's one way you could say it. Other people would say, well, you were a Christian, and then you turned your back on God. It doesn't matter how you phrase it, the same result comes. No one enters the kingdom of heaven without a life of faith. And when a person is looking at the outside, we don't know what God is doing with people. Sometimes it's immaturity He's dealing with, sometimes they've turned their back away from Him. He only knows. He's the only one that knows that. But God will not allow anyone into His kingdom in heaven unless they have given themselves to Him in faith. So don't you think for a moment, Gentiles, that just because the branch has been broken off for the Jews, you can get in without the same kind of commitment. It is not going to happen. God will not allow it. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, and God is able to graft them in again. He's saying, God is a merciful God, and He responds to us, and He responds to our faith, so that there are times and ways in which God gives us another chance. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, contrary to its nature, were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into the olive tree? He ends its discussion by saying, God has not given up on the Jews. If they were the natural olive trees, and their branches were broken off, if God could take wild olive tree branches and graft them into this regular olive tree, and they were productive and fruitful, how much more could He take a real olive tree, whose branch was broken off, and graft it back in? Now, this is not good horticulture. It's not the way you raise trees. He's telling us something, using this illustration to help us understand that the power of God is available. Even though you couldn't do that in horticulture, God can do it. He can graft somebody back. We don't have rules in which we say, OK, God has to do this, and He can't do this. He has to do something else, and He can't do this. God does exactly what He chooses to do, because He has the power to do it. And whatever God chooses, that is what He does. I want to warn you, He says, when you place your faith and trust in Christ, He grafts you into the tree. Don't be arrogant about that. Don't think that because He broke off those branches, you're better than them. You receive faith. You receive salvation as a result of your trust in God. Don't think that just because you've been grafted onto the tree, everything is finished. You have a lifestyle of living in obedience to Him to prove that you're grafted to the tree. You're living a life based on the same things that the people before you lived as. And for those of you who are Jewish people, He was saying, don't think that because your limbs have been broken off, you're hopeless. For God can come back and take you and graft you on again and make you a part of the kingdom and His purpose in the world. God's intention is to redeem people. His intention is to let us be grafted into the great stream of history of His people. He wants us to understand that it's a result of our trust in Him. We did not earn it. And we should have no arrogance. He wants us to understand that the evidence of our grafting is the fruitfulness of our life, the spiritual life that we're living in obedience to God. And if we do that, if we allow God to work through our lives because of our trust in Him, then we're guaranteed the place with Him. And if someone should claim that they are God's children, grafted on at one time, and the fruitfulness is not there, it's not true. Our job is to preach and proclaim and live the truth in front of people so they will know what it takes to be a part of this great stream of history. You are no different in God's eyes than Abraham. You will come to know Him in the same way Abraham did. You will have the same promises made to you that Abraham did. And you will have the same guidance that Abraham had. Chastised whenever you do something wrong. Affirmed when you do something right. The power of God to make your life fruitful. We were not born Jewish people, but we're grafted onto this tree and as much a part of the family of God as if we were natural to the tree. God has placed us in a great heritage. He wants us to live that life that others might see the fruitfulness of God. Would you bow your heads for a moment? I want to say first of all that I hope that whenever you get in a discussion with people about salvation or the Christian life, that you never forget to talk about salvation as the result of your trust in God. Not church membership. Not the good things that you do. But the life of dependence on God. Dependence on Christ. I want to ask if you get in a conversation with people and you hear them talk about things that you know are deadly to them, that you will ask God how you can tell them the truth without criticizing them, making them feel stupid, or making them feel like that they're bad. That God will help you know how to tell the truth so that it might encourage them to trust Him. The last thing I want is for you to think of your own life as a part of the great stream of history. Abraham is your forefather. Isaac and Jacob is your forefather. That you are a part of something enormous. The family of God. God has a purpose for your life. He had a purpose for the Jews. He has a purpose for the church. It's the same. And you're a part of that. And God has promised victory. Father, sometimes we look around us and we see the power of sin overwhelming our culture and our world. Sometimes when we see that, we think that it's hopeless. It's because we lose sight of the fact that in this great stream of history you always have won and you always will win. Help us to be confident that when we do the things in obedience to you, there will be great results for your kingdom. In the name of Christ, we ask for this confidence. Amen. Amen.