2 Cor 11

Warning: The following content is an automated transcript and may not be correct.

Father, we thank you for this day you have given us, Lord. We thank you for your mercy. We thank you for your goodness, Lord, as we enter the season of Christmas, we thank you for your coming. We thank you Lord, that you left the glory you were in and came in the likeness of man, that you would be here for us. And I pray, Father, that in this season that with the over commercialization of the season, Lord, that we won't forget that you are the entire reason for this season.

I pray as we go to this time that you will guide us, Father, that your spirit will speak to us, that you will conform us to your image and that you will be glorified. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Well, good evening everyone. Welcome back and sorry about last week. We had some issues, shall we say? But with that said, we're gonna continue our study in Second Corinthians. One other quick note, I just realized I forgot for my announcements.

Normally by now we have Christmas songs in our rotation. We start the first week after Thanksgiving. That was last week. And with the chaos of my life and everything that happened, those did not get added to our rotation. So next week they'll be added.

And also on that note, we have our Christmas candlelight service coming up on December 24th will begin approximately at 6:30 or 7:00pm and then for those who can attend physically, I'll have an address for you guys, hopefully by this coming week. So with that said, we're going to jump back into Second Corinthians. Last week we did chapter 10, or two weeks ago we did chapter 10. And I just want to kind of remind you that Paul taught us a few things in chapter 10. We talked about the war that we fight.

The war that we fight is not according to the flesh. Right? We live in the flesh. But the war that we fight is against powers and principalities and invisible forces. And for that reason it's extremely important that we wear and utilize the armor of God.

We read about that last week too in Ephesians 6.

Then after that Paul talked about. Sorry, I'm not really here, but I'm here. Paul talked about for what it is that that we boast. And we boast in the Lord. We do not boast in ourselves, and we have nothing in ourselves to boast about.

We also discuss the fact that we do not or should not compare ourselves to other people, to other people's ministry, our success versus their success. Remember that our success, whether it's in our ministry or our lives. Life, when it comes to the kingdom of God, is not measured by how many people get saved by your outreach, how many people get baptized by your outreach, how many days you're out preaching and sharing the gospel. But our success is measured by our obedience to God. If God has instructed you to go and do, and you have gone and done, the results themselves are not the measure of your success, but the act of obedience is.

So with that said, we're going to jump here into chapter 11. We're going to start with just the first four verses. Here he says, I wish you would put up with a little foolishness from me. Yes, do put up with me, for I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, because I have promised you in marriage to one husband to present a pure virgin to Christ. But I fear that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your minds may be seduced from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

For if a person comes and preaches another Jesus whom we did not preach, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you put up with it splendidly.

The tone in which I read that does not match the tone in which it was written. Just so you know, this was written a lot more harsh than the. Than the tone in which I read it. So he says, put up with a little foolishness from me.

Paul is going to, in a way, and admittedly act foolish. Throughout this chapter, he's going. He will do a little bit of comparison from himself to other people. And he's going to speak.

He's going to, in a way, boast about some of the things that he has done. And that is foolish to boast in ourselves and what we've done in our activities is foolishness. And now he's going to say, put up with it for a little bit from me. And he explains why. He says, I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy.

The way that Paul sees himself to these churches, he sees himself as their Father.

And we need to be careful with the way that I say this or not? I say this. But we understand this because the Catholic Church uses the term Father very loosely, right? All their priests, right? Our Father.

You know, if we're a Catholic, you might call me Father Dava. And that. That is not the intent that Paul has when he says this. It's not the way that Paul views it, right? He doesn't view it as his Father Paul, but rather he views it in the sense of these people are the fruit of his labor.

He's gone out there, he's done this labor, this groundwork. They're the fruit of it. And he views them in a sense, as his children. The people that he stewards, the people that he takes care of, that he rebukes and corrects, that he teaches and that he loves. And the image that he's drawing here is an image going back to Jewish tradition where a father would present their daughter to the groom as a virgin.

In Jewish culture, if you weren't a virgin, you were almost unmarriable. Sometimes someone might marry you, but you were almost unmarriable. The father's job is to promise you in marriage as a virgin and present you as a virgin. And Paul says his goal is to present the Church of Corinth strength to Christ as Christ's husband. Remember Christ, Isis.

Man says bride. The church is the bride of Christ. And his goal is to present the church to Christ as a pure virgin, but not. Not muddied by having different gods, different idols, different priorities, but that they are pure and virgin to Christ. However, he says in verse three, he says, I have a fear that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, that your minds may be seduced from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

What does he say? Let's first remember what happened with the serpent in the Garden of Eden. The serpent came and he tempted Eve. But how did he tempt Eve? Right.

Paul says here that he deceived Eve. And I've said this many times. The devil does not tempt us with sin. The devil never comes and tempts you and says, you should really go look at pornography or you should really steal that candy bar, or you should really tell a lie to your parents about what actually happened tonight. He doesn't tempt you in that way.

Those things are natural. We're sinners. If you're inclined to theft, the devil doesn't have to come and tempt you to steal. Your own mind will do that. That if you're inclined to pornography, the devil doesn't have to tempt you, your own mind will do that.

The way that the devil tempts you is through deception. He doesn't come and say you should steal, but he comes and says, is it really wrong to steal? Did God really say that you shouldn't do that? Is there really anything that that's inherently wrong about it? Right.

That's what he did with Eve. When he tempted Eve in the garden, he said, did God really say that you should not eat that fruit? And when Eve gave her response, he tempted her further and said, he just doesn't want you to be like him. The way that the devil tempts you is by convincing you, deceiving you, that the truth is not the truth, that what God said in his Word is not. Either not what he meant or not what he said.

That's how he tempts us. That's why we need the word of God. That's why when Jesus fought the devil in the wilderness for 40 days and he was tempted. We talked about this recently in the book of Luke, right? Every temptation of the devil, how did Jesus fight it?

He fought it with the word of God. He says it is written, it is said because his temptations is, is to convince you or get you to question whether or not what God said is what he said or what he meant. So he says that he fears that in that same way the church of Corinth can be seduced away from a pure devotion to Christ.

Remember, Corinth is a gentile and heathen church, Right? This is a city that's Gentile. The people are gentile, they're not from Jewish background. And they have their, the area of Corinth had their own deities, their own religion, their own idols that they worshipped. And Paul is concerned that they may be polluted by them, by the people trying to either cut them away or even so called Christians.

And he'll talk about this in a minute, trying to pull them away. And, and what about modern ways? Is that an issue today? Is it an issue today that the same way the serpent deceived Eve, that he could deceive you?

I would say yes. And I have a very great example.

In the LDS Church, they have something called the Articles of Fish Faith. And in the Articles of Faith, one of them says, we believe that the Bible is the Word of God, comma, so as long as it's translated correctly, that is a modern day example of the exact thing that Paul warns about right here. Right.

What they're doing is they're putting doubt into the Word of God. They say we believe that the Bible is the word of God if it's translated correctly. Now, I can see validity in saying if it's translated correctly. But the way that they use that isn't in the sense of actually verifying the translation. We can do that today.

They, we've got the Dead Sea Scrolls, we've got manuscripts, we've got the Hebrew, we've got the Greek, we can do that. But the way they use that is to actually change the intent. And you can see it either in their services or if you talk with their missionaries or even their members, when you give them verses, they say, oh, that's not what was really meant. That's not how it, how God intended it. Right?

By adding that comma. So as long as it's translated correctly, what they have done is introduced a mechanism by which they can say, did God really say that? Right. That is a mechanism of the devil.

So that's his fear for Corinth. And I want to say that's his fear today. That is a pastor's fear. As a pastor, I do not desire that any of the people underneath my leadership are seduced from being sincere and pure to Christ. Right?

I don't want anyone under the umbrella of my leadership to be seduced into believing something that is not true. But I also have that desire outside of church, of the Bible. I don't want my neighbors seduced into false beliefs and systems, or my friends or my co workers. So the fear is just as valid today.

And I think if we all carry that fear, that is where things will change, where things will happen. It's not just enough for me to fear that your mind will be seduced, but for you to fear it as well will. Because that recognition, that understanding of how the devil works is how you stop him when you don't understand that the way he works is by saying, did he? Is that what God said? Is that what God meant?

When you understand that, though, and you catch that happening, you're able to say, hey, wait a minute, that's a trap from the enemy. So look what else he says here in verse four. He says, if a person comes and preaches another Jesus that we did not preach, or you receive a different spirit that you did not receive, or a different gospel, you put up with it splendidly. So first, before I get into those other things, Paul justifies his fear that they will be seduced in verse three, in verse four, by saying that when other Christ or gospels or spirits are preached to them, they accept it freely. They put up with It.

So that's his justification. We can see that today we see people who we call them church hoppers, they just jump church to church to church or denomination to denomination. They hear a different Jesus or different gospel and all of a sudden they accept it and put up with it. Right? That's justification for the fear.

But we also want to look at what he says is happening. If someone preaches another Jesus. How many Jesuses are there? One. One Jesus.

But is it possible to preach another Jesus? Yeah, I can come and I can preach whatever made up message or gospel I want with whatever made up Jesus that I want and seduce you away from Jesus. And that's what he is saying. He says if a person comes and preaches another Jesus, right, there's only one Jesus. But it is possible for someone to make up another Jesus and preach that made up Jesus.

Now Paul's specific concern in verse four, I want to be. Because I don't want to get away from a specific concern before I talk about my concern. Because today the concern is different than it was back then. In the context of Paul, the concern was this, that there were people talking about, remember in chapter 15 of First Corinthians that Paul had to defend the resurrection of Christ. He had to defend it.

He said if he did raise from the dead, why are some of you proclaiming that he did not? And so that's, we had a whole conversation about that he did raise from the dead. There is evidence and yet there are people saying that he did not. And that is the specific context in this verse when he says if someone comes and preaches another Jesus that we did not preach, the concern is there are people coming and preaching a Jesus who did not resurrect from the grave. But a Jesus who did not resurrect from the grave is a Jesus who cannot save.

So that's Paul's concern. But how about the modern context? In the modern context the issue isn't false denominations preaching a Jesus that didn't raise from the grave. But it's false denominations teaching that Jesus isn't divine by nature.

I know a lot of us in here are ex Mormon. I know some of us in here here don't like when I pick on the Mormon Church. But this is another great example to pick on the Mormon Church. The Bible teaches that Jesus is God, that he was always God, that he was God from the start, that he created absolutely everything in existence, seen and unseen. But the Mormon Church preaches that Jesus is himself a creation, right?

That he's a literal Brother, to us, that's a different Jesus. They come and they teach a Jesus of a different origin.

The Jehovah's Witness, they teach a different Jesus. Even Islam, the Muslims do. They don't say that Jesus didn't exist, but they preach him as a different Jesus. They preach that he was just a great prophet, that he had no divine origin, that he had no, you know, supernatural origin. He was just a great prophet.

So these are all examples of somebody coming and preaching another Jesus, he says, or a different spirit. Right here. He's not necessarily talking about the spirit of God as much as the spirit of love, the spirit of fellowship, or a different gospel. And I don't have this in my slides to show you guys, so I'm just going to have to read this to you rather than. And not put it up on the screen.

But I want you to show, I want to show you how serious that Paul is about this issue. In Galatians, chapter one, start in verse eight. Or actually, I'm going to go back to verse seven. He says, sorry, I'm going to go all the way back to verse six. Let's see if I can make up my mind.

I'm going to start in verse six, Galatians chapter one. I'm going to start in verse six. He says, I'm amazed that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, right? So he begins in this passage. He's saying, we've given you the gospel.

You've received Christ or have received him. And I'm surprised at how quickly you are turning from that back to a different gospel. Verse 7. He says, not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are troubling you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. So he says, there is only one gospel, right?

There's only one good news, but there are people distorting it, turning it into their own thing, deceiving people for their own gain. And he says, I'm surprised. I'm amazed that you, you will turn to that. And then look what he says about that. Verse 8.

This is important. He says, but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, a curse be on him, as we have said before. And I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, a curse be on him. Now I'm reading out of the the csb, the KJV is even more harsh about It. It says to let that person be damned.

So that's how strongly Paul feels about this topic, right? So he says, even if we. And when he says we, let's translate to what he means. He says, even if I, Paul, the apostle Paul, who preached to you the gospel to begin with, come to you and preach to you a different gospel, then let me be damned. Or he says, even if an angel comes and preaches another Gospel, let that angel be damned.

For whether it's Paul or an angel or myself or anyone else who preaches a different gospel than the gospel of Christ, they are not agents of Christ. They are distorting it. And they are using it to manipulate you to their own gain. That's how strongly he feels about that.

I cannot believe I'm looking at the time as I watch that I've spent that much time on four verses.

So let's continue. We're going to look at verse five here.

So here's what he says. He says, now, I consider myself in no way inferior to those superior apostles or super apostles. Sorry. Even if I am untrained in public speaking, I am certainly not untrained in knowledge. Indeed, we have in every way made that clear to you in everything.

Or did I commit a sin by humbling myself so that you might be exalted because I preached the gospel of God to you free of charge, I robbed other churches by taking pay from them to minister to you. When I was present with you and in need, I did not burden anyone. Since the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need, I have kept myself and will keep myself from burdening you in any way. As the truth of Christ is in me. This boasting of mine will not be stopped in the regions of Achaia.

Why? Because I don't love you. God knows I do. But I will continue to do what I am doing in order to deny an opportunity to those who want to be regarded as our equals. And what they boast about.

For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no great surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will be according to their works.

So strong. Passage here, here.

The first thing he says is, I don't consider myself inferior any. At least in my version. I haven't looked in the KJV for the sermon. It's in quotations. He says super apostles.

And what he's referring to, there are people going around, there are people who are preaching different Gospels, different Christ, different spirits, and they're persuading people and consider themselves super superior. Why? Because they are very. They can. They can speak.

And let's be honest, there are people out there who can speak. Right? Who are they? They can't. Are great public speakers.

They're very charismatic. They're very charming. A great example is Barack Obama, right? Whether. Whether you like him or not isn't a discussion for a church service.

But like him or not, he was a great public speaker. He was charismatic. He knew what to say to get people to gather around him. He knew what to say to persuade people to do what he wanted. Another great example of such a person is Adolf Hitler.

He knew how to speak from religious standpoints. A great example is Joel Osteen. Joel Osteen is not a minister of Christ. He is a false. The way that Paul would put it, a false apostle.

But boy, can he speak. He can gather a crowd. He gathers. I was reading on average 10 to 15,000 people a week in his church. Why?

Because he's charismatic. He can speak. He knows what to say to get you to change over to what he teaches and what he says. So Paul says, first and foremost, I am not inferior to those people. He says, I'm not trained in public speaking.

And you know what? A lot of. A lot of pastors, a lot of missionaries, a lot of workers of God are not trained public speakers. An excellent example is Moses. Remember when God called Moses and told him to do these things?

Remember what Moses said? He said, I'm sorry, God, he chose the wrong person because I am not good at speaking.

So Paul's defense here, remember, he's defending his ministry. And the defense today is being a bad speaker doesn't make you inferior as a pastor or a teacher or a missionary to people who are good speakers, especially to those who preach a wrong gospel. It's not inferior. Right? And what he does say is this.

He says, even though I'm unskilled in speech, I am skilled in knowledge and have made it clear. We know he's skilled in knowledge. We read his epistles. His epistles are filled with wisdom. And so what he is showing them is that they need to.

The big issue in this chapter is committing to Christ, committing to following Christ, committing to the gospel that was originally preached about Christ and not so much being concerning, how well does your pastor speak? Is he eloquent? That doesn't matter. But what does he teach? And then he moves on his defense.

He says some people and this is true today. But let's stick with his context. When he says, did I commit a sin by humbling myself? His issue is some of his critics actually claim that what Paul is doing, ironically these critics are the people who are doing this very thing. They're saying that he is doing it to his benefit, to his gain.

He's doing it to build himself up and to get rich off of the church in Corinth. And so what Paul reminds him is he says, I've actually never taken a payment from you. He reminds him, if anyone says I'm doing this to get rich, let me remind you that everything I did was free. I didn't charge you. He says, in fact, I robbed other churches.

And he doesn't mean that literally. He went and stole from them, them. But there were other churches, particularly from Macedonia and Achaia, who did support him financially. But this is important today because a lot of churches that have strictly like denomination wide unpaid pastors or ministers or bishops or whatever, they actually use that instead. You know, that we're real because none of us are paid.

And the paid ones, they're just doing it to get rich. Guys getting supported is not, does not mean that you're doing it to get rich or that you're doing it to take advantage. And Paul makes that defense. And you can tell, you can tell that about in ministries today as well. There are ministries who, they do what they do just to get rich.

I mean, I already referenced one Joel Osteen, right? He does it because he wants to get rich. But then you can look at the others who paid or not, they continue to do what they do. They continue to preach or continue to travel and do missions. They might be way underpaid.

But that is Paul's issue here is he says, look, nothing that I am doing is for my own gift, but I am doing it out of love for you and out of concern for you. Now it does say this. He says, I will continue to do what I am doing so that my opposition may no longer boast. Paul preaches the gospel of Christ. He preaches a consistent gospel.

He preaches out of wisdom and knowledge. He preaches out of. He does, it is out of love, right? It's selfless. And he says, so that these other people will be found guilty for what they are boasting about.

He says, for they are false apostles. They are deceitful, they are workers of Satan. And here is a warning. Look at verse 14. Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light.

Guys, a lot of People say, well, and I hear this from many different denominations. I hear it from Mormons, I hear it from Jehovah Witnesses, I hear it from Catholics, I hear it from, even from Muslims. They say, well, if this were false, if this weren't true, then why do they do all these good things? Or why do these prayers come true? Or why does this happen?

Guys, Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light and so do a servant. Just because he is evil doesn't mean he's incapable of doing something that appears good to deceive you.

The same is said in us. God says that none of us do good works. The only good works we can do is are after we are saved, after we know Christ in it. It's Christ doing the good works in us, right? So even if we're not saved, if you go out and you have an elderly neighbor who is disabled and you pull their trash can out to the street every week for them and then pull it back in, that doesn't make you godly or righteous in any sense.

You might be doing a good thing. You're still an evil person.

And that's what, that's the point of this here is Satan is evil, but he can disguise himself. He can do good, good things for the intent of persuading you and deceiving you into what he wants to do. And so that's a warning. So when people say, so why, if this church isn't true or this denomination isn't true, then why do they do these good deeds? Or why do they do this?

Or what is this? Well, because they are disguising themselves as angels of light. And you need to be aware of that. Let's look at the next passage here. We're going to go 16 through 23 here.

So the next passage he says, I repeat that no one consider me a fool. But if you do, at least accept me as a fool so that I can boast a little, what I say, what I am saying. In this matter of boasting, I don't speak as the Lord would, but as it were foolishly, since many boast according to the flesh, I will boast for you being wise, gladly put up with fools.

In fact, you put up with if someone enslaves you, if someone exploits you, if someone takes advantage, if someone is arrogant toward you, if someone slaps you in the face. I say this to our shame. We have been too weak for that. But in whatever anyone dares to boast, I am talking foolishly. I also dare.

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham?

So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I'm talking like a madman, but I'm a better one. With more labors and more imprisonments, far worse beating, many times near death. This continues, but I want to stop here for a second.

Paul tells us here he's not talking the way the Lord would real quick. He's now talking like an upset human would talk, right? When you finally get so upset, you just have to say what's on your mind. And he said, he tells us that's what he's doing. He says, he says I'm talking foolish.

And what I'm saying, verse 17 is not what the Lord would say, but I'm saying it in foolishness. And he even says, he says I'm talking like a madman. And what he means is he's beginning to boast in the flesh, which is sinful. We don't boast in the flesh. And to boast in the flesh is in.

It's not wise, it's unwise. But the reason he is doing it, and he tells us the reason is doing it, is that the only way to get you to listen to me is to boast. I will boast. He says, I'm not boasting for the sake of building myself up. I'm not boasting for the sake of saying what I've done, but I'm boasting because that appears to be the only thing you listen to, right?

He says these other people boast and they take advantage of you and they even slap you in the face and they, they lead you astray, they enslave you. But because of their boasting, you listen to them. So allow me to boast as well. And then in his boastings, the first thing he does is he directly compares himself to these people. He says, are they Hebrew?

So am I. Are they Israelite? I'm an Israelite. Are they descendants of Abraham? I am as well.

So what he is saying is all of these so called qualifications that they have, he also has. If they're going to listen to them, to people based on these qualifications, he has the same ones. So why don't they listen to him? And guys, we don't, we don't need a boast and pastors don't need a boast and you don't need a boast to preach the word of God. And that's not what Paul is doing here, but what he is doing here is trying to get their attention.

And he finished this out. Let's finish this out. Showing you how he tries to get their attention. Look what he says about himself. Five times I received the 40 lashes, minus one from the Jews.

Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked. I spent one night and a day at the open sea on frequent journeys. I faced dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, dangerous from Gentiles, dangers in the city, danger in the wilderness, wilderness, danger at sea, dangers among false brothers, toil and hardship, many sleepless nights, hunger and thirst, often without food, cold and no clothing, not to mention other things.

There is the daily pressure on me. My concern for the churches, who is weak and I am not weak, who is made to stumble and I do not burn with indignation. If boasting is necessary, I will boast about my weakness. The God and my Father, Lord Jesus, who is blessed forever, knows I'm not lying. In Damascus, a ruler under King Artaeus guarded the city of Damascus in order to arrest me.

So I was let down in a basket in a window in the wall and escaped from his hands. Wow, that's just a lot what he describes here, and there's not a lot of doctrine in it. It's narrative. So we're going to go. I'm just going to go through it very, very fast.

As what he shows here is what's happening is he is showing and explaining the fact that he is not doing this for glory and fame. He's not doing this for power and money. In fact, he explains the people who are boasting and leading Corinth astray, they are doing it and they're not in danger. And he says, look, here's. If it's necessary to boast, let me boast about the things of my weakness.

He says, I've been shipwrecked, right?

Five times he has been beaten with 40 lashes, minus one. Keep in mind what they're talking about when they say lashes minus one. These are whips designed to rip your flesh off. And they had determined that at 40 lashes, it would kill somebody. So the way that they would punish them without killing them them is they would give them essentially a death sentence, but minus one.

So it's 40 lashes, minus one. So what he is saying is five times, five different times in his ministry, he had been lashed with this lash design to rip off his flesh 39 times. Five different occasions be in a throat, right? He was even once stoned. At this time, they thought he was dead.

And Threw him over a city wall when he was stoned. Because they stoned him to the point they really did think he was dead. And to make sure he was dead, they tossed him over the wall. He survived that by the mercy and compassion of God. He's been shipwrecked, he's been robbed, he's sometimes gone hungry.

He was imprisoned many times, sleepless nights, often had no clothing. And his point of all of this is to say two things. One, if he were a false preacher, because remember, this entire book of Second Corinthians is to defend the legitimacy of his apostleship. If he was a fake apostle, if he was doing this for glory or fame or power or money, he would have stopped by now, right? Nobody is going to go through all of that and continue for something that's not true that they don't believe in.

I certainly wouldn't. The first time you whipped me with that type of lash, 39 times on my back. If I knew it was false and didn't really believe in it, you can guarantee I would be dumb. But Paul wasn't. The second reason that he boasts about all this stuff is, remember, he's not boasting in himself.

But he is. But he says it the way he says it is. Here at the end. He says, if boasting is necessary, I will boast about my weakness. Notice that in all of his boasting, he doesn't say, I saved 5,000 people or I baptized 5,000 people, or I started 50 churches, or I have traveled to a hundred cities.

Notice he, in all of his boastings, he's not boasting about the great things he's done, but he's boasting about the bad things that has happened to him. Why? Because he is showing that God is strong in our weakness.

God isn't strong in our strength. Not to say that God's not strong, but if we're acting in our strength and boasting in our strength, we're actually pushing God out of the picture. So he's boasting in his weakness. He's showing that, look, I'm weak, but God is strong. And that is what we need to know tonight.

And as we come to a close tonight, I want you to know that God is strong for you, too.

If you can be weak, if you can allow yourself to be weak and allow yourself to be humbled, God is strong in your weakness. And if you are weak right now, in fact, some people hearing this, you may be at breaking points in your life where you either feel like you're hitting rock bottom or there's nothing left or no hope. Well, guess what? That's great in weakness. And God can be strong for you too if you would receive him.

And I say receive, not accept. It's one thing to say, well I accept what is written, but receive him. Let him come into your heart and your life. But you can't do that unless you first admit. First say, hey, I'm a sinner, I'm a wrongdoer.

Believe that Jesus is indeed God in the flesh, Creator of heaven and earth and confess him as your Lord. Not just the person who died on the cross to save you, but the person who dictates your life. And if you can do these things, if you believe those things and simply just ask God for it, he'll give it to you. In our closing prayer here we will. I'll ask you to just repeat that with me if you want to.

And no, that prayer doesn't save you. It's the admission, that confession that saves you. But we will verbalize it to God together. After a closing prayer, we will partake of the Lord's Supper. I invite everyone to stick around and partake of that with us at the end of this meeting.

And then I will see everybody else back here again Wednesday at 6:30 as we continue our Bible study through the book of Luke. Let's go pray. Father, I admit that I'm a sinner. And I admit that I can't save myself. And I admit that my ways are wrong.

And Father, I believe that Jesus is the God man, the creator of heavens and earth. I believe that he did die and resurrect the Jesus that is preached by Paul on this gospel and and in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, that you are the God man who not only died but resurrected from the grave. And I confess you as my Lord, the King over my life and submit to you. I ask you, Father, to come into my heart to let me receive you. Father, I pray that we will glorify you as we can be weak and in our weakness and humility allow you to be strong.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.