Elder Steve Woods & Elder Mark Richards | 2026 Camp Meeting | Sunday AM | 7.19.26

Elder Steve Woods, Pilgrim's Rest PBC, Arkoma, OK

Elder Mark Richards, Little Vine PBC, Austin, TX

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. 25 of them were not coming to this associate or this camp meeting for the last 25 years, but at least I made it. And I'm so glad Brother David invited me. And I'm so glad I came. And I appreciate so much the love, especially the home folks, putting on this meeting. It's a lot of work and it's a lot of expense. And I know they've had some help, but thank you all who have been a part of that. And the Lord is in his place. If you haven't felt him, you should start praying now. And just ask him. Make yourself real to me, Lord. He'll do it. The Christian religion stands on the resurrection of Christ. Or it falls. And uh I got something I want to read to all of you before I get to that. It's what I wanted to say to you in my own words, but my words aren't near this good. For now we live if you stand fast in the Lord. For what thanks can we render to God again for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God. Night and day, praying exceedingly that we might see your face and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith. Now God Himself and our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way unto you. And the Lord make you be, make you to increase and abound in love, one toward another and toward all men, even as we do toward you. To the end, he may establish your hearts, unblamable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his sins. Brother Mark's probably sitting over there hoping the Lord comes back before he has to get up here. I hope he comes back for that. I can't tell you when, but I can promise you he will. And you know. The truth is we're all gonna die. Then what? We've got something wonderful awaiting us, but only for one reason. Because the Lord Jesus Christ saw fit to make it so. And that's okay. But I want you to know there is a Father, there is a Son, and there is a Holy Ghost. And that is who I'm referring to when I say the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I know there are three persons. The Son didn't offer his blood to himself, he offered it to the Father on your behalf. Or you would go where you deserve after you die. But I got better news for you than that. He's with you already, right now, here. You're in possession of eternal life right now if you've been born of the Spirit of God, because Jesus said this at the tomb of Lazarus. He said, Whosoever liveth, don't leave that word out. Whosoever leaveth, liveth, and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? That's what Jesus said. Now he's only talking about the body when he says, You're gonna die. Because if you're born in the Spirit of God, you will never die. You, the real you. This clay tent we live in, it's gonna die. But that's you. But that part is glorified later. There's glory that's gonna be revealed in you. I can look out here and it looks to me like everybody I see is born of the Spirit of God. I'd be shocked to find out otherwise. Maybe some of you it just hadn't happened yet. But y'all look and act like born-again children, but one day it will be manifest. It'll be manifest which one of you are, because you'll all be with me and Jesus in heaven. You'll all be meeting with the other loved ones that have gone on before in the air, and we'll be all caught up. Not up in foolishness. We won't be caught up in foolishness like we sometimes are here. We'll be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air. That is just unfathomable for our little pea brains. I mean, we've got finite minds, and to put our minds around that is just really hard. But it's a reality. I bet you thought I was going to go on to 1 Thessalonians 4 after I read the end of chapter 3, but I'm not. I love the brother I'm gonna be standing up here with this morning, and I tell you, some he's preached some of the best sermons I've ever heard. And that's not uh something that I take lightly. If you have your Bibles with you, and I want to read from 1 Corinthians 15. And I hope you're Bible readers, and if you're not, today would be a good day to start. And I say that in love. I say this in love. 99% of the first century church were not Bible readers. There was no Bible, and there were 99% illiteracy rate. 1% of the people in the first century could read. 1%. 1%. You live in the best time ever. I know because Brother Philip told me it's the close, we've never been closer to the resurrection than we are today. So this has to be the best time ever, right, Brother Philip? Best meeting ever, best time ever. This is a good time. Paul wrote some harsh things to the church at Corinth because they needed harsh things written to them, and he wouldn't have written to them if he hadn't been inspired by the Holy Ghost to write to them harsh things. Then he says, Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved. From ignorance, from a desperation, from a lack of hope, but you're saved if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins. Now, if he had meant to say he died for the sins of every member of Adam's race, I believe he would have said that there. But he was talking to born-again Christians in the church. And he said, Christ died for our sins, yours and mine. And that's what I believe. I believe just what he said. I don't believe he messed up here. I believe he got it right. I hope you do. And that he was buried. That's why, you know who we bury? We bury dead people. His body had died. He had hung on a cross. After a beating that I won't describe. But in Isaiah 52, the prophet described him as being beaten so that he was unrecognizable as a man. That's a severe beating, folks. That he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. Now I want to tell you that if you have a view of the resurrection, that it's all glorious because I will be raised from the dead and my body will be made new, that's a very limited view of the resurrection. And I want to say it because of this, and I'm going to say it as kindly as I can. If Christ was not raised from the dead, then you are still in your sins. And if you'll go back to the letter that Paul wrote to the church at Rome, you'll find at the end of chapter 4 that it says, we were raised, he was raised again for our justification. We know that we're justified from all of our sins because Christ rose from the dead. And I want to assure you, if that were not the case, then there would be no further resurrection. Okay? Our bodies would not be raised from the dead if Christ had not been raised from the dead, justifying us from all of our sins. For me, being raised from the dead is a very important thing. It's an extremely important thing. But what I want you to understand is that only because Christ was raised from the dead will you be raised from the dead. Because, and he'll talk about that later, but I wanted to get that in here in case I forget to mention it later. Now, Paul, Paul gives two according to the scriptures, because he's emphasizing to the Jews here that are in the Corinthian church that this is the mystery that has been revealed. Okay? The Jews knew very well that there were a lot of prophecies, but they didn't understand them, and they were mysterious prophecies. Some of them are still mysterious for me, Brother David. I'm uh I'm thrilled to live in the day and age that I do. I've had so many things straightened out to me in my mind by old Baptist preachers since coming over from where I was raised. And those were lovely people and wonderful people and good people, and they're saved people, and I'll see them in all in heaven someday. But right now, as they walk around on planet earth, they just unfortunately don't have it as good as we do in knowing what we know. And that's the kindest way that I can say that. I'm trying to be a sweet old preacher in my old age, and I not got there yet, I know. But I say this because I want you to understand that Paul makes three arguments in this 15th chapter. And I don't mean that he's arguing with someone like a legal argument. He makes a scriptural argument, and then he makes a legal argument, and then he makes a logical argument in this chapter. And when you understand that, when you see that, when you get that, it's so much more richer in your faith, it builds up your faith. Now keep praying. And that he was seen of Cephas, who he's referring to as Peter, the Apostle Peter, then of the twelve. After that, he was seen of above 500 brethren. Now, this is a legal argument. Okay? Brother Mike, if somebody took you to court and you had 500 witnesses in your favor, who do you think is going to win? If they accused you, Brother Silas, of murder and then at the time of the murder you had 500 witnesses that you were somewhere else, what do you think would happen? They'd throw that out of court, wouldn't they? They'd say, it couldn't have been Brother Silas. We got 500 witnesses. Brethren, that's enough. Okay? You might call that overkill. But above 500 brethren, you know what brethren are? They're responsible witnesses, Brother David. These are not, these are not thieves that were hired to lie in court. These are honorable men, brethren, testifying that they've seen the risen Lord Jesus Christ. That's good enough for me. I don't know about you, but that's good enough for me. He's made a legal argument. He's made a scriptural argument. He says after that, he was seen of James, then of all the apostles, and last of all, he was seen of me also as of one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles that am not meet to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God, and he never could forget it. He never could forget it. Folks, what we do has consequences. And sometimes they're all mental, and that's the worst kind. Oh Lord, help us. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace, which was bestowed upon me, was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not me, but the grace of God which was with me. Therefore, whether it were I or they, so we preach and so ye believe. Now, if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some of you that there is no resurrection of the dead? If they had a clue what they were saying, they would have never taught that. Some, I believe, Judaizers came in there teaching there's no resurrection, and I suspect Sadducees, I don't know, who else would want to run some kind of what's the point of that? If there's no resurrection of the dead, Brother Paul is teaching us in this chapter that that's a very dangerous position to take. I don't want to be a non-resurrectionist. I couldn't be. That's so foolish that if I gave up believing in the resurrection, I think I'd leave the Christian religion altogether. Because the resurrection is the proof that you're justified from your sins. I don't want you to forget that. It's proof. I'm like proof. I'm not having proof that I'm not going to have to stand before God on resurrection day and answer for all my sins. That would take up eternity, I spec. But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen. And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain, and your good cooking is in vain, and all this wonderful singing is in vain, and that cannot be. No, that that singing I heard all weekend here. I don't know which one was the best because I'm just not that good of a judge of character. I know it was loud enough to set off my wife's phone that said at 90 decimals you can have temporary loss of view. I mean it was her I it was her watch, not her phone, but it says if you're in that for more than 30 minutes, and that's why we only sing for 30 minutes at the time. Okay. Now I want to get really serious here. I'm going to move down to uh verse 20. But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. Now, this is talking about the first Adam and the last Adam that we've heard about, preached very well this weekend, and I thought. For as in Adam all die. Now, this is a key phrase in Adam. In Adam. Now, I hope you're all Bible readers and I've established that. You've been given a very blessed gift of not only the ability to read, but something worth reading. Okay? The Bible. But if you're like me and you're a Bible reader, you're going to run upon things that don't make sense. Okay? I had converted to the primitive Baptist faith, been baptized, and was trying to walk right according to my knowledge. And I read this, for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Sounds like a universalist text. Okay? It's not a universalist text. A universalist is someone that believes Jesus is not going to have any goats to separate from the sheep when he comes back. Okay? Is that plain enough? That's accurate, isn't it, brethren? Isn't that an accurate description of a universalist? There's gonna be some goats. Now I'm just a dumb country boy from Arkansas, but if he says he's gonna come back and separate his sheep from the goats, I am persuaded there are some goats. There gotta be some goats. They were not in Christ. Amen. It's a positional text. They were not in Christ. The goats were not are not in Christ. Everyone that was in Christ before the foundation of the world will be in Christ after the foundation of the world. After the end of the world, after the end of time, everyone that was in Christ before will be in Christ and in heaven where he is. Okay? That's how you understand this text. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ. All that are in Christ shall be made alive. That's what he's saying here. Now sometimes the English language doesn't properly delineate in the same, doesn't sound the same when it's translated from Greek, which was perhaps even translated from Hebrew. But that's another time. But every man in his own order, Christ the first fruits, afterward, they that are Christ's at his coming. Now, who's who are they that are Christs? Can I get all that the Father giveth me? They are Christ's. Then cometh the end. When he shall have, and that's not the end as far as everything, but that's the end of this time world. Okay? Then cometh the end of this world. Then cometh The end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father. When he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. Now I want you to get something logically here. He's gotta have a kingdom. He can't deliver up a kingdom to the Father unless he's got a kingdom. Some people think there's not a kingdom. Some people think there's a kingdom off in heaven in the future, but there's not one here now. If the only kingdom now is up in heaven, then there's nothing to deliver up because they're already up. Okay? Now these are just, I'm look, I'm not a complicated man. Brother Gary's already told y'all I simple man and keep it simple. That's the way I understand it. I'm not saying y'all are simple, but y'all are she. And so I want to preach on a level that the second graders and up at least can understand it. Okay? Because that's that's what I'm here for. There's other preachers that can preach deep and that's for them to do. Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power, for he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. Now, is it true that he has defeated death already? Yes. Amen. But he has not yet destroyed death, because we see death every day. Whether it's the death of bugs when we go, or whether it's the death of men and we weep and go to funerals. But we see that death is still alive and well in planet Earth today. It has not been destroyed, but it has been defeated because those of us who are in Christ go on to heaven when we die. But here comes a I'm going to read down to the next hard to understand text. Else, what shall they do which are baptized for the dead? If the dead rise not at all, why are they then baptized for the dead? And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? I protest by your rejoicing, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. What does he mean, baptized for the dead? And let me get this and I'll get out of Brother Mark's way. There is an order that, there's more than one order that baptizes for the dead in their understanding of this text, which I do not believe to be appropriate. But the dead here is Christ. Why are you being baptized for a dead Savior? If you think your Savior hasn't been resurrected, if you don't believe in the resurrection, then you're saying you don't believe your Savior has been resurrected. If he hasn't been resurrected, what is he? He's dead. And he's asking these Corinthians, if you're non-resurrectionist, why did you get baptized for a dead Savior? And then he says this I protest by your rejoicing. I don't believe you believe that. Y'all folks is way yonder too happy to be believing in a dead Savior. And if your Savior's not dead, then there is a resurrection of the dead, and you're going to be in it, and there ain't no better message than that. Come ahead, brother Martin.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

Such a rich blessing to be with you at the meeting, thankful for that that's gone before, and discussion among people and preachers whether you like to go first or second. And I love to go second because when you're preceded by such beautiful gospel preaching, and I can enjoy it while I'm looking for uh handles to grab a hold of. And it's an encouragement to me when that that comes before seems to harmonize with what I have on my mind. That having been said, I think that would have been a great way to end the meeting. Um, so I don't want to take anything from it. In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, where uh brother Steve was reading, one of the saddest things to me, and Brother Steve mentioned this, the purpose for which the Apostle Paul wrote the letter to the church at Corinth, uh they stood in need of some correction. And you can sense in the Apostle Paul's writing, there were some things that perturbed him about their condition. Um things he didn't take lightly, things that he was offended in. Um of them saying that they were of Paul. I think that was up there with an irritant for him that he took personally and he did not appreciate. And given the opportunity, if he had nothing else to say, they might have got a letter and it could have been on a post-it note, just said, You are not of me. But one of the saddest things about the book of 1 Corinthians is right here in chapter 15, where it says, If in verse 12, now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you? He didn't say, Why is it reported in the world that Christ didn't raise from the dead? He's talking to, if you'll allow me a little bit of liberty just so we can feel the proximity of it, he's speaking to a Prunabaptist church. I mean, speaking to the church of the living God, a communion, a community of saints, just like the one of which you're a member, and you think of all the things that were going on in the church at Corinth, and I'm this and you're that, and all the division and all the schism. But what could be more tragic than within this congregation of believers in Jesus Christ, that there were some among them that said there was no resurrection of the dead? I mean, that's gotta be painful for the Apostle Paul to feel like that the compulsion to write this letter is moved by the Holy Spirit, how criminally wrong it is for a child of God and for a professed believer in Jesus Christ to say there's no resurrection of the dead. Um, I believe that the death of Jesus Christ is the most eternally consequential moment and accomplishment this world has ever known or will ever know. And the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most timely important aspect of the ministry of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ because of all the things that Brother Steve was so blessed to preach to us this morning. But there is one word that I want to draw from 1 Corinthians chapter 15 that I'll admit it's what I wanted to preach about, and I didn't realize it was in chapter 15. So I'm glad I was listening. Um and this gets very close to where I wanted to end my sermon, and we we talked last night. I'm a backwards preacher. Um I start at the end and work to the middle, and um uh that may mean there's no beginning. Um but I'll say that um I I want to end up back here in in the letter of the 1 Corinthians, but I probably wouldn't have gotten all the way to chapter 15, uh, verse 23. But every man in his own order, Christ the first fruits, afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. You are Christ's. You're not Christ's plural, you're Christ's possessive. You belong to Jesus Christ. He owns you. You're one of his belongings. I I've been on some planes recently, and I thought I had heard everything that the flat attendants could tell you, but something, they've they changed it a little bit, and they're evidently they're more concerned about people taking their stuff with them if you have to get off the plane in an emergency. And they're getting a little more um blunt about it. And they said, you know, if we have to get off this plane in an emergency, you know, leave your belongings behind. Do not bring your stuff. They make that that clear. And I I if if that ever happened, I want to get off the plane. I want to get off the plane alive, and I probably value myself more than I value my stuff. But when they said it, Brother Jeb, I just, a little tinge of sadness seemed like, I don't want to leave my stuff. And I was thinking, that's why they're having to tell everybody this is whatever you got in your bag, I mean, you were willing to get it through security to get it on a plane, you probably don't want to leave it behind. And we feel strongly about our belongings, right? We also feel strongly about belonging. And what I would submit to you this morning, if I don't say anything else, is you belong to the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That brings a sense of belonging. And the reason why it brings that sense of belonging is because you are his belonging. You belong to him. And when you think about what God owns, what he possesses, and and this sum earlier this summer and I tried to talk about the preeminence of God and the sovereignty of God. Um there's another aspect of this that's uh I'll say sovereign adjacent, and that is the ownership of God. God owns a lot. And I would encourage you, if you if you would find it encouraging, if it's a pain to you, just forget I said it. But if you want to keep a little pad of paper next to your Bible, and when you're reading, just on this piece of paper say, what God owns. And just as you're reading, just jot down as you find things that God owns. It's incredible what all God owns. And I think if you were purposeful about it and you're reading, you'd find that the Bible tells us over and over about many things that belong to God. And what's interesting in this verse is it describes you as Christ's apostrophe. One of my pet peeves is when people use an apostrophe s for plural things instead of possessive things. Just a small thing, don't do it. But here, when when the apostle Paul wrote this to the Corinthians, and when it was transliterated to English, care was given to say, you're not Christ's plural, you're a Christ possessive. And that apostrophe means a great deal. And what you can find is in the Word of God, there's several times where you find this word, Christ's apostrophe s. There's times where you find God apostrophe s or the Lord apostrophe s, which suggests, since there's not, when it's talking about that Lord, the Lord, and the God and the Christ, there's no other. Remember, he's preeminent. So when it says the Lord's with a capital L, it's never plural, it's always possessive. And the Lord possesses things, he owns things. Now, when you consider that as a subject, I think what you'll find is there's essentially four ways in which God owns something. He owns it by creation. God has created things out of nothing. I have refashioned some things. When I was in school, I was in creative writing, and I wasn't making up words. That probably wouldn't have, I wouldn't have scored very well if I was making up words. Right? But I was rearranging words other people had already made up, and they allowed me to call that creative writing. But God is the only creator making something out of nothing, and that gives you a provision to say you own it when you create it. Another way in which God owns things is in his sovereignty. There's some things that belong to him, not even just because he made them. And God is sovereign. And that category helps us understand there's some things he owns, he didn't even have to create. And so I'll try to talk a little bit about that. Then there's a two more that probably get really close to the two. Um there's some things that he owns by covenant, which is promise. When he's promised something, um when I promise something, I'm kind of aiming at something. I'm kind of saying, I'm hopeful that it will go the way that I can influence it, and I'm making a commitment that as much as I have the power to do it, it'll go that way. But when the Lord makes a covenant, promise, it cannot not happen. Right? Um, the Apostle Paul uses the phrase, God forbid, and that doesn't just mean it would be inconvenient if. It doesn't mean it won't happen. It means God has prohibited that uh from happening. He's forbidden it, and it can't happen. And the things wherein the Apostle Paul says, God forbid, God has put rules and regulations in place that it cannot go that way. Um and then the fourth way in which God owns something is in redemption. God has redeemed some things. Now, what's strange about that, take it in that order, and maybe if you started with the sovereignty of God, and then that creative authority and power of God, you think, well, if he owns everything, why would he ever have to buy anything? Um, but we'll we can consider that a little bit and realize God owned you, but you still needed to be purchased. And God was willing to own you, and he was willing to purchase you. He had the authority to own you, and he has the authority to purchase you. He has not just the will or the willingness to purchase you, but he has indeed purchased you. Which to me, Brother Greg, it means in any way, and there's probably more than those four, in any way that you could be owned of God or by God, Brother Jeb, that's how you're owned. He literally created you. And just by virtue of that, he owns you. You are his because he created you. You are his because he is sovereign over everything, and you're in the everything. He owns you because he covenated and promised that he would own you, and that promise is sure and steadfast and eternal. And then he bought you with his own blood, and that blood, there is not one drop of it that was wasted that will not be fully answered and satisfied. You know, when you see somebody, you say, I hope he gets what's coming to him. Jesus Christ is going to get what's coming to him. What he bought is his. And redemption is the claiming of something that you have purchased. And, friends, in that way you belong to God. And there's no way you can unbelong to him. You can't cease to be his creation, you can't ascend above his sovereignty, you can't get before his promise because his promise was before you, and you cannot unredeem yourself, you cannot disannul the price that Christ paid for you. You couldn't earn it, you didn't deserve it, you didn't agree to it, you didn't ask for it. All that's good, but it's as important that you can't get yourself out of it. Because, friends, if you could get yourself out of the redemption of Jesus Christ on purpose or by accident, you would. And I can say it this way, you would have. You already, this morning, if you could not belong to God, you would not belong to him. But this morning you belong to him. You belong to him in a way that is immutable and purposeful and eternal, that can't be questioned and can't be undermined and can't be overruled. And that speaks to his sovereignty, it speaks to his power, and it speaks to his love. Because you are his own, because he loves you. And friends, if he ever has to get off of a plane, you're going with him. Right? He's not, he will not leave you behind. He doesn't care what the flight attendant says, he doesn't even care if the pilot gets on and says, Listen to the flight attendants, the Lord says, I'm flying this plane. I'm this plane. And the Lord will not leave this world without receiving his own unto himself. And the promise is we will be forever with him in the air. So you are Christ. And I'll just say in case I can't get there, so we're going to get to the beginning of the sermon. I wasn't sure if I'd get there. Um, Genesis chapter 3, one of the great lies that the devil has ever told to God's people. In Genesis chapter 3, verse 1, it says, Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And I would um I would guess that that, the subtlety of that statement, uh has been a um, I would say Brother Josh a weed, unless you tell me that other word. But it's been a um something that's been planted and borne much fruit over many thousands of years. That men have had a desire to be gods. And what I'll tell you, my friends, is the reason why you don't need to be gods is because you are gods. The reason we should have no desire to be gods G-O-D-S is because we are capital G-O-D apostrophe S. There's not anything we could gain by being gods because we've been given everything because we're gods. You are gods. You already had something better than the devil could offer in the Garden of Eden. Oh, if Eve could have said, I don't want to be gods, I'm gods. Right? What a blessing for us. And and how it would disarm us about trying to undermine the sovereignty of God to say, I don't need to be him, I'm his. Right? And when you start looking at the things that belong to him, chiefly, you are something about which or about whom he truly cares and loves. I think that Jesus Christ counts you as his greatest possession. You're a beautiful belonging. And in a world where we desire to belong and we want to fit in, we don't need to be gods. We don't need to know what God knows. We need to know what God would have us to know. We we the beauty of faith is it's a faculty whereby we can see things from God's perspective, even though we're not God. It's like God has given us what we stand in need of to hear him and to see him and to understand him and to believe him. And Brother Ted, we don't have to be him to be that, but we have Christ in us. The hope of glory. We have the Holy Ghost bearing witness within us. And that's being born of God. So for a few moments this morning, I want to think about some things that belong to God. And I've already stole my own thunder. The most important thing that belongs to God is. You. Okay. But you're in good company because God holds a lot of possessions. And when you see his authority over the things that he holds and possesses, when you see that there were some things that he owns because he spoke them into existence, you realize he can own me. Right? When you realize what he bought with his own blood, you realize he could have bought me. And surely he did. I think one of the greatest things we could say in this world is by his grace, I belong to him. I'm God's, I'm Christ's, I'm the Lord's. There's nothing better to be. There's no better group to which you want to belong. You know, there's groups that you fight to get into, and then you get into you like, there's nothing going on here. But to be the Lord's, to belong to Him, it is life-changing. And I don't just mean this life. It's eternally life-changing to belong to the Lord. And um, so let's look in uh Psalm 95, I believe. Psalm 95. And I was thinking last night as Brother Josh was preaching about Jesus Christ as a shepherd, and there's some beautiful things there in John chapter 10. If I don't get there, I just I'll say it stirred my mind and thinking about, Brother Josh said, if if we had one of those shepherds from Ezekiel 34, we wouldn't even want to be a sheep, right? But because of our shepherd, there's no better place to be, there's no better thing to be than a sheep of God. And that has not to do with how great it is to be a sheep, but it has to do with how great a shepherd he is. And Jesus Christ even taught us there's a difference between a sheep keeper and a sheep owner, right? There's a difference between a hireling and a shepherd. And the difference is who owns the sheep? There's a difference between a mother and a babysitter. I found that out. Babysitters are far nicer than my mother. But Psalm 95 says, Oh come, let us sing unto the Lord, let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise unto him with Psalms. For the Lord is a great God and a great king above all G-O-D-S. That's all. The devil couldn't even give that. But that's all, Brother Jeb, he was even offering. And your God is above all gods. The devil made it sound like you'll be equal with him. But this said, even if you've been made little G-O-D-S, which is all he ever promised, it didn't even say you'll be capital G-O-D. You would be God's knowing things. This says this God is better than all gods. Well, that's where we were anyway. There's no reason to follow the temptation of the devil. He had nothing to offer.

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But it says, For the Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods. In his hand are the deep places of the earth, the strength of the hills is his also. The sea is his, and he made it. Right? Remember, we said there's one way in which God owns things, and that's in his creative power. And this is the sea is his. And this doesn't say the seas, because I'll just say when I was growing up, that was one of our geography lessons was to name all the seas and all the continents. And about the same time we were naming all the planets, and then they changed it, Brother Greg. It's different than what we said, right? And they could come up with some more seas and some less seas, but I'm telling you, there's one sea, there's the body of water that's connected on this, and it belongs to him. And the reason it belongs to him, at least one of the reasons it belongs to him, is he made it. He said C B. And it was. The sea is his, and he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. His hands formed the dry land. That's creative power of God. And when he formed the land with his own bare hands, that land belongs to him. There's not a thing in this world that shouldn't say copyright God 000. That shouldn't say trademarked by God 000. He owns every patent, right? Everything that's been made that's so fearfully and wonderfully and mysteriously made. He is the great patent holder. He has patent 000. How are nine digits, I guess? He's got the the patent that's chief over all patents. He formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker. He is our Maker. And if He is our Maker, just like He was the sea's maker, and the sea belongs to Him, guess what this must mean? If He's your Maker, you belong to Him. And like Brother Josh said, there's some things and some people, some organizations maybe you don't want to belong to. I'm telling you, you want to belong to this Maker. He made you, and you belong to Him by virtue of that. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture. Now, that's beautifully manifoldly true because that says the pastor, the pasture is His, and we are His, and not only does He own you and made you, He owns and makes the place that He lets you live. We are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Now, what would that mean to be the sheep of His hand? I think in one way, and certainly in the context here, it feels, Brother Sonny, creative. You are the sheep that were created by His hand. We're also the sheep that are kept by His hand. When we pass under that rod and that staff, we find the comfort of the great shepherd. But we are also the sheep of His hand in the sense that He owns us as His sheep. And we'll get into the New Testament, back into the New Testament to establish there is here it's established that you're His sheep because He made you, but we're gonna find you're also His sheep because He bought you. Okay. And He wasn't just willing to buy you. You ever see an auction where people kind of get ahead of themselves and they they get a little too enthusiastic and then they accidentally win? That didn't happen to God, right? He didn't say, Oh, I want them and they're like, oh no, now I got them. I got it, I don't think I can afford. He, on purpose, no accident involved, he bought you. Right? Yeah, with purpose. And when He bought you, on by everyone else's estimation, he didn't get what he paid for. Like we're we're worthless and yet we're made priceless. But I'll tell you this, he was not shortchanged, right? No buyer's remorse. God never said I paid too much for them because he values the blood of Jesus Christ and He values you. At the end of the day, He said, I got what I paid for. And Jesus Christ certainly is gonna get what He paid for. He is gonna come collect that purchased possession. Your spirit, God made your spirit, He created your spirit so that your spirit belongs to Him and it's never belonged to anybody else. He made your body, and thanks to this Garden of Eden nonsense, what happened? We fell away from him out of a desire to be little G-O-D-S. And he said, They've always been mine, right? Oh, how much better it is to be gods than gods. But we we fell to a place that we surely needed the Lord to redeem us. And whatever price was required that he would redeem us, he was willing to pay. And as brother Steve taught us this morning, he paid it. Not just a willingness to pay, he has paid it. He has the receipt. And when he comes to gather the purchased possession, there's no one who can ask or question. There's no one who can lay any charge to God's elect. Do you know the elect is something else that God owns? God's apostrophe select. That elect don't belong to nobody but God. That means nobody but God elected them. Nobody else chose them. I didn't choose them. I didn't even choose me. I'm God's choice. I'm God's elect. And Jesus Christ, Christ is God's anointed, his favorite, his chosen. But it says, He is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. And then it goes on to some other things, but let's keep moving. There's uh in true backward fashion, let's go to Psalm 50. Um find it here. Psalm 50, verse 9 says, I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds, for every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. How many hills do you think he owns? Thousands, and that's all of them. He owns every hill. And he owns every cattle that's ever trod on any hill, whether it's on your side of the fence line or his. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee. And friends, this sounds like it's hypothetical, but this is true. I will tell you this the Lord will never come to you asking for you to feed him. He's never lacked anything and come to you. He's never come to you seeking your acceptance and your agreement and your validation. If he needed that, this brother Bill says, one, we know he doesn't need that, but this even says, even if he did, Brother Phil, he wouldn't come to us for it. He's a God above all gods. He's sovereign. And he owns you. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee, for the world is mine and the fullness thereof. There's much more there as well. Um let's go to 1 Chronicles chapter 29. Um I'll just mention this because it's another thing that kind of moved me in this direction. At Chambers Creek, Elder Mason Tilly went before me. We had the privilege, I had the privilege to share the time with him. So I won't speak for him that it was a privilege for him, but it was a privilege for me. You can ask Brother Mason how he feels about it. But it was a privilege for me to share the time with him. And he went to 2 Chronicles, and I'll go there in a moment, but one of the things that he brought out of that that really stuck with me is the battle is not yours. It's the Lord's. Capital L O R D Apostrophe S. The Lord owned that battle. It was his before the battle started. We know that because the people had a blessing in knowing that it was the Lord's before the battle was even fought. But here in 1 Chronicles chapter 29, uh verse 11. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness. That belongs to Him. Thine is the greatness. This greatness, greatness, belongs to God. Great is the Lord our God, and greatly to be praised. One of the ways in which we ought to greatly praise him is he is great, and he owns greatness. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty. For all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come of thee, and thou reignest over all, and in thine hand is power and might, and in thine hand it is to make great and to give strength unto all. Now, therefore, our God, we thank thee and praise thy glorious name. Now, we said before, there's some things that God owns because he's created them. And when you look at the cattle of a thousand hills, he made the hills and he made the cattle. Here it says, Thine is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty. Those are things he has not because he's created them. These are things he has and he owns because of his sovereignty. Greatness belongs to him. And I would submit to you, he didn't create greatness because he's always been great. There was no greatness outside of him, and he wasn't at one point not great, and then said, I want to be great, and created greatness. So he owns greatness not because he created it, he owns greatness because greatness is subordinate to him. This says, if anybody's made great, it's because you make them great. You have the power to make great, you have the sovereign power over what great is and how great is given. So he didn't even have to make it in order to own it. God owns greatness. He owns power and glory. He didn't, he never existed without any of those things. And then you see something like this: He owns the victory. You start thinking, there's something the Lord can do with a victory. He can own it, he can earn it, and he can give it. Just like He can give greatness, He can give the victory. Oh, that's how you become more than a conqueror, is when the Lord giveth you the victory. And God has never given anything He didn't own. You know what happens when you give something you don't own? You're a criminal. And God is not a criminal. He's never He gave you love. Do you know how, under what authority He gave you love? He is love, He has love, He expresses love. He owns love. If you love, you're owned of Him. If you love, it's not like you're borrowing a faculty of His. He is love. And He's manifests this glorious power to own things and even be able to give things because He owns them. The victory and the Majesty. For all that is in heaven and in earth is thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. What a great owner that He is. What does He not own? Maybe that'd be easier to keep track of. What does He not own? I can't think of a thing. I mean, my sin. Like He's not responsible for that. Uh He didn't uh uh prescribe it, didn't cause it. But God He is and owns by virtue of His creative power and by virtue of His sovereignty. And then we find God, I'll go ahead and get 2 Chronicles since we're close. 2 Chronicles chapter 20. Um, when this war is waging and Jehoshaphat believes it's his his battle, and the reason he believes his battle is because people have told him it's his battle, we're gonna come and get you. Right? They didn't tell Jehoshaphat, we're gonna come get your God. They said, We're gonna come get you. And so it's reasonable for Jehoshaphat to think the battle is mine. Um but when we get to um verse 15, thus saith the Lord unto you, be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's. This tells me there's a there's something, this isn't just an academic lesson of what belongs to God, what doesn't belong to God. There is something that can enrich you and bring you comfort and consolation and peace when you know what belongs to God. There's some other things that belong to God, and I think I might have mentioned this at Chambers Creek. If he owns things, uh, he can be jealous over those things. And he owns judgment. So it's also important for us to know one, factually what he owns, two, it's a comfort to know what he owns, and then three, it's a caution to know what he owns. Right? Your eternal life, he owns that. That's a comfort to know that, but Brother Jeff, it's also a caution to me not to harden my heart in the provocation and to uh express a disbelief or be like those uh that were ignorant of God's righteousness and go about to establish my own righteousness. By the way, there's another thing God owns: God's righteousness. And just like these things that He has because of His sovereignty, he also has the ability and the willingness and lovingly gives it to us. You've been given the righteousness of Christ. Um but in this world, have you ever felt like there's some battles that belong to you? When people are offering up prayer requests, or there's some things that you don't even say out loud because you think it's just you and that you own them alone? Friends, it's such a blessing to know that those belong to God. That battle is not yours. He owns it. And the reason he owns that battle, you know why he owned that battle? Because he owned Jehosaphat. Because he owned Judah. That's why he cared about that battle. That's why that battle belonged to him, because it was a battle he would fight for his own. And the things that we face in this life, the Lord owns them. Because he's not just touched with the feeling of our infirmities, he has taken possession of them. He owns your cares. Cast your care upon him, for he will care for you. That's not what it says. We might think I better cast my care on him, or if I'm willing to cast my care on him, then Brother Jeb, he can take ownership of my care. That's not what that verse says. Cast your care upon him, for he careth for you. That basically says the care that you're gonna give him, he already owns it. He already owns it. So what is it when we cast our cares upon him? We're not adding to him, we're subtracting from ourselves. We're taking a burden off of ourselves and saying, the Lord owns this. And that's that's not just academic, that's a consolation to your heart and to your soul to know what the Lord owns. There's so much more here. Let me get um, I'll just mention John 10 in passing. That difference between the shepherd and the hireling has so much to do with ownership. But as we let's let me um get to this through Acts chapter 20, verse 28. Um, there's one verse we want to grab here that will take us back to John chapter 10. Acts chapter 20, verse 28 says, Take heed therefore unto yourselves. And this is the very message that he had in Ezekiel 34. But take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, not owners, but made you overseers, which means you're a hireling, but the the reason why you won't flee is because they belong to him to whom you belong to. And it's a strange thing. I don't know that it works this way in the world out here in DOS, but there is a a sheep that's the under shepherd. When you've been given oversight over a flock, you don't become a shepherd instead of a sheep. You're a sheep. You're still a sheep. But um to feed the church of God, to feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood. Again, we go back to John chapter 10, it didn't say he was willing to do that. And that would be that would be remarkable that someone were willing to do that for you. But it goes beyond remarkable that he did it for you. It didn't just say that the Father commanded that I be willing. I'm an Aggie, and so it hits close to my culture. Jesus Christ is not the 12th man sitting on the standing on the sideline waiting to go in. Jesus Christ is man one. Or maybe we should say man two. Man one was Adam, and Jesus Christ is the second man. But you don't need a man three through twelve, right? He's not waiting to get involved in case he needs to be involved. He's owned this from the beginning. And he wasn't just willing to go in. He wasn't just willing to die. He went in and he died for you. And what we find is that that was literally a commandment of God. In John chapter 10, it says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. He giveth his life for the sheep. He that is in hireling and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth, and the wolf catcheth them and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth because he is in hireling and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep and am known, and am known of mine. As the father knoweth me, even so I know the father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which I uh which are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. Therefore doth my father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. And no man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my father. And that commandment was lay down your life, and that commandment was take up your life. And in that we have the greatest eternal consequence and the greatest timely consequence in the ministry of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That he laid down his life and then he took it back up. So let's finish here in 1 Corinthians. Um like I said, I don't think I was even going to get to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, but where I want to jump back in is in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Just a few verses to leave with you here. 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Uh another, we we mentioned some things that probably displeased the Apostle Paul with what the Corinthians were saying, and some of them saying that they were Paul or Apollus or Cephas. He said, I have planted Apollos water, but God gave the increase. You know what that means? The increase belongs to God. The fact there is an increase, that belongs to God. And the increase that comes because it belongs to him, the increase belongs to him. So he owns the principle and the interests. Right? Um God gave the increase. So then neither is he that plant planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one, and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are laborers together with God. Ye are God's husbandry. Ye are God's building. It didn't say you're like God's husbandry, or in some analogy, you're God's building. You are God's husbandry. He's planted you. Ye are God's building. He's built you. He owns you. He he you're not a mobile home on leased land. Like he owns the land and he owns the foundation and he owns the house. He owns all of you. And there's a great blessing in owning a house that sits on land that you own. Right? Because God, what God has built doesn't belong to anyone else. There's no one who has a lean on it. As a matter of fact, no one can lay anything to the charge of God's elect. Because he owns them. Full stop. Not yet. Alright. According to the grace of God which has given me as a wise master builder, I've laid the foundation, other buildeth thereon. Let's go later in chapter 3. It says, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come. That sounds a lot like Romans chapter 8, right? Of all those things, it says things present or things to come, all or are yours. Okay, that sounds great. All these things belong to me. You know what's greater than all those things belonging to you? And ye are Christ's. And Christ is God's. It's better to be owned by Him than to own anything else. It's better to be owned by Him than to own everything else. And we'll close here in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 20. For ye are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. Your body belongs to him. Your spirit belongs to him. Your soul belongs to him. Your cares belong to him. Your concerns belong to him. Your prayers belong to him. Your song belongs to him. Your hope belongs to him. Your life. And friends, what a beautiful belonging that you are. God bless you.