Welcome, everyone. I am so grateful that you're watching. I appreciate it. And I realize that so many of us, hopefully, prayerfully, coming off of the pandemic now, still though, there's so much lingering stress and situational circumstances that in many cases are heartbreaking.
And I want you to know that right here at this particular Christian television network, you are always invited to be here. So glad that you've got it, your dial said here right now. But keep it set here for ministries that will encourage you, come along beside of you, share the words of the Lord above everything else with you and pray with you. And I'd like to pray with you and pray for you right now.
The Lord Jesus died on the cross for our sins. He was buried with our transgressions. He arose with our justification. Then He ascended to the very pinnacle of authority, the right hand of the majesty on high in Hebrews 1.
You can read those scriptures. Having by Himself purged our sin. Then in 1 John chapter 2, if He may not see Him, we have an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ, the righteous, who is the propitiation of our sins and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world.
Back there in 1 John chapter 1 verse 9, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The Savior on the tree became the risen Lord from the tin, and now He's the head of the church and the Savior of the body. And our great high priest who lives in range forever to make intercession for us as He sits upon His throne of mercy and grace. Yes, from Hebrews 4, we have a great high priest passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God.
So let us hold fast our profession. We don't have a high priest who's not touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He understands us. He appreciates the difficulties because in all points as we are, He was tempted yet without sin.
And because of Him and through Him, we can come boldly under the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. This I've just read from this book. So we have access to God through the Lord Jesus. Heavenly Father, I want to pray right now for everyone looking in.
Topping the list would be those who are not yet prepared to meet you through death and into eternity. I pray God that the Holy Spirit would take this edition of the focus of freedom and use it as a resource of our dear viewer to see and know that you love them so much that you sent your only begotten Son into this world, to become our sin and to pay our sin that and then rise again with our salvation and justification. And so I pray for everyone that your Holy Spirit is already speaking to that they may say yes, personally, to your glorious invitation. As you knock upon the door of their life, I pray that they will open that door to you now.
And now God, we want to pray for your ministers, preachers, pastors, church leadership, as well as church membership across our nation. Oh God, I pray that we will humble ourselves to the point to where you would be attentive because you resist the proud that you give grace to the humble. And so I pray right now that all of us is your people from the leadership all the way through the membership of your local churches, that we would humble ourselves, pray, seek your face, turn from our wicked ways and let you have your way. I pray, oh God, we'll surrender, we'll submit that we'll quit being so much like us and start striving to be more like you that our precious folks in our country would get a clearer look at you, Lord, looking unto you, the author and the finisher of our faith.
And now God, we want to take a minute to bring the stress and the sick and the sorrowful. Lord, many are grieving, many are sick and body, many Lord able to also love ones, even to this COVID-19 virus. So whatever the stressors are, I pray God that you will just renew in us a spirit of understanding and knowledge and discernment, the world we would know of a certainty without doubt that you are within us as your people and there is nothing stronger than you. There is no one higher than you.
You have no superior for you, have no equal. You are God. And so we pray for our viewers now, as we have through the years, Lord, all we can do is just exalt and extol your grace and encourage myself and all of us to place our faith into your grace. And when our faith meshes with your amazing, all-sufficient grace, the miracle of peace will certainly take place.
And then walking in the spirit, not fulfilling the rest of the flesh, we can know your purpose and engage your will. So help all of us as your people right now, to present our bodies, the living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto you, which is our reasonable service. Not conform to this world, but transform by the renewing of our mind. And Father, what that sounds like to me is sanctification.
And I pray that all of us will get in your word like we're going to do here in just a minute. For your word is the source of the faith that brings salvation to the center. And it maintains the process of sanctification in our lives as your children. Thanks, Heavenly Father.
And it is with faith and thanksgiving that we pray with all of our viewers now in the highest and holiest name there is, the name of Christ, Amen and Amen. Always a joy to pray for you and pray with you. We appreciate your prayers for us. We're going to a song now and you've probably never seen this little trio.
They call themselves of the day and they've got a song for us right now entitled Living Hope. Aren't you glad Jesus is our Living Hope? Give a listen to of the day. How great the chasm that lay between us.
How high the mountain I could not climb. In desperation, I turned to heaven and spoke your name into the darkness. Your loving kindness tore through the shadows of my soul. The work is finished.
The indies are written. Jesus Christ, my living hope who could imagine so great a mercy. But I could find them such boundless grace. The God of Aedence stepped down from glory to where my sin and bear my shame.
But the cross has spoken of kings cause me his a beautiful sego of yours forever. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Praise the one who set me free. Hallelujah.
Death has lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ, my living.
Then came the morning. That sealed the promise. Your buried body began to breathe out of the silence and the roaring lion. Declared the grave has no claim on me.
Then came the morning. That sealed the promise. Your buried body began to breathe out of the silence. The roaring lion.
The grave has no claim on me. Jesus yours, yeah. Praise the one who set me free. Hallelujah.
Death has lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ, my living.
Hallelujah. Praise the one who set me free. Hallelujah. Death has lost its grip on me.
You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ, my living. Jesus Christ, my living.
Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, he's our living hope. He's our blessed hope. And when we as God's people, according to 1 John chapter 3, if we have this hope in us, we purify ourselves even as he is pure.
Titus chapter 2 verse 11, the grace of God that brings salvation, hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness in worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world. Old time preacher said years ago, ain't nobody like Jesus. I concur. And you do too if you're saved.
And if you aren't saved, why me a sound on the greatest treasure in all the universe? And that is the knowledge of Christ being saved by his grace and then led by his grace with every need supplied, according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. God bless you for watching. We appreciate you being there.
We're going to get into the word of Almighty God together now. But before we do, we invite you to come by our website, ftministries.org and spend some time with us our Facebook page. You'll find us at the Freedom Tavernacle, Atkins, Virginia. And you can spend time with us there and get acquainted with the things that God is doing for us and through us.
We have the privilege every day, 365 days a year to be in the highways and hedges going out seeking who we may discover that's hungry for the gospel, taking the word of God into the lanes and hedges and highways and byways of this life. And we've been blessed to be able to have many outreach ministries there. Then I invite you to download our app, the Freedom Tavernacle app. You can find it at any app store downloaded, of course, for free.
And you can stay in touch with us all the time. And one of the things that's unique to the app is we're going through, get you to call it a series of messages, on signs of the coming of the Lord Jesus and the end of the world. And we've covered a lot of territory ending up in Matthew 24. And now we're beginning a journey into the seven churches of Asia Minor and then a look into the book of the Revelation.
And that's you can only find that there on the app that's not available on the website or anywhere else, just the app. And you can stay in touch with us and look at our Nailing Addresses Contact information and perhaps even become more involved in laboring together with the Lord. And that's the thought that God is seemingly putting on my heart right now to discuss in the time we have left here today or this evening whenever you're watching. And we'll probably carry it on for the next three broadcasts as well.
So if you're there where you have the Word of the Lord available, wish you would turn with us, just get the Word of the Lord. And we're going to begin in the Gospel of Luke chapter 5. Here's a very interesting story to me and we'll just get started in this on this edition of the Focus of Freedom and then we'll carry out this thought of laboring together with the Lord. You remember the disciples when they were in their ministry with the Lord Jesus when he was on earth, went everywhere, the Lord working with them.
Then in 1 Corinthians 3 I'm reminded of a scripture there that says laboring together with the Lord, laboring together. That's a beautiful thing. But laboring together with each other and in addition the Lord laboring with us. Now that kicks it up to a higher level.
He will bring the victory because the battle is his and the victory's ours. So this is a biblical truth that was shared with me by the Holy Spirit years and years ago about the difference between working for the Lord. And it's wonderful to work for the Lord. Don't misunderstand.
But when we get this truth to be applicable and to be habitual in our lives as Christians that we are working with him better said he is working with us. So let's begin this discussion now. Luke chapter 5, it came to pass that as the people pressed upon him to hear the Word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennazareth and saw two ships standing by the lake. That's Paul's upright there.
The fame of Jesus had spread like wildfire. John the Baptist, his cousin in the flesh baptized him, cried aloud, behold the lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world and almost instantaneously multitudes of people on that old Mesopotamian trade route that went from Alexandria, Egypt all the way over into Babylon. So don't think it was just a few people in a few obscure villages. There were when the Bibles, thousands of people were gathered to hear him.
The Bible is true and accurate historically and in every other way. The popularity of Jesus had risen immensely in a matter of weeks and especially in the first year of his earthly ministry. And I remember about a year prior to this time here in Luke 5, Jesus was introduced by Andrew. Andrew introduced him to his brother Peter.
Wouldn't it be a joy if we would just be busy introducing the ones we know and love to this man called Jesus. Nathaniel was involved in that and Philip and the rest of them. They were wondering, well, who is this man Jesus? Well, Jesus of Nazareth.
So the question was, could 4th get anything good come out of Nazareth? That was sort of the derogatory slam there because the people in Nazareth were, you know, that even the lineage of David by the time Jesus was born had been reduced to peasantry in the intertestament period. The Pharisees had come to dominance in religion in Palestine and had also become political powers as well. And so in the eyes of people, anything or anybody that came out of Nazareth would be not the best or not the highest quality.
And yet we know that that's who Jesus is. To the Corinthians, Paul would say he was rich. Yet for our sakes he became poor. If you're watching and listening and maybe you think that people in this world think you're the least likely to succeed, can I tell you, in the eyes of God, you're the most likely to succeed.
He loves the least of these. And I'm so glad he does. But he loves the rich and the famous as well. That you remember when Jesus said it'd be easier for a camel to go through the eye of an eagle than it would be a rich person to enter into the kingdom and they ask him, well, who can be saved?
I'm sure many of you have been in the Holy Land and you know those huge gates that led in the cities back years ago in the time of Christ. That they were big huge gates that camels could come through, wagons could come through. But in all those gates were a smaller door that they called the eye of the needle. So what Jesus was saying was that the camel couldn't go, it wasn't impossible for the camel to go through an eye of a needle.
But that camel would have to get down on his knees and be led by the camel driver to get through that smaller opening. In other words, the bigger animal would have to get down to the size of a smaller animal in order to gain access into the city. I don't care if you're rich or poor. I don't care what race, nationality, or economic standing.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. We cannot trust our riches, our power, our control, our prestige, or anything else. We're all the grounds level to the foot of the cross.
Anybody can get in, but everybody's got to come in the same way. Now how's that way? Jesus said it to Thomas in John 14, 6. Christ said, I am the way, the truth and the life.
No man come with unto the Father, but by me. So here is Peter. We're going to be introduced to here learning more about Jesus after his initial contact with Jesus. You remember a second Peter 3, that last verse over there?
That we are to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. Yes, Andrew had introduced Peter to Jesus and he had met Jesus. He had come to know him as an acquaintance. Many of us sometimes we know him as Savior, but then our growth process in the Lord is stunning.
And there are a myriad of reasons why, but let me share this with you. And it's a truth that I've learned from experience through the years as a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm glad one day Christ took the change of sin off my heart and mind and soul, aren't you? That's a wonderful, wonderful treasure to know that we've been freed.
Jesus said, you know the truth and the truth will make you free. But here's a tragedy. Jesus frees us from chains and then we start following him with excitement and with pleasure and with anticipation and expectation of blessing. But if we aren't careful, here can come some religious people and drop a cage on us.
And yet the chains of sin are gone. But now we find ourselves in a cage of religion and the relationship with Jesus that we ought to be pursuing and allowing fellowship and friendship with him through the Scripture and through the Scripture, through the Holy Spirit and the Sacred Scripture to expand us and enrich us as we go deeper, wider, higher, and comprehending the love of Christ to use the terminology of Paul. And instead of following on after the Lord, we get a cage dropped on us. And all we know then and be intolerious the dimensions of that cage.
And it's not a metal cage. It becomes a mental cage. And from growing into true spiritual mandineness, we get stalled in carnal mandineness. And we reduce what is to be the relationship of our lifetimes with God down to just another typical religion about God.
That's a tragedy. And Peter's going to teach us something here through his life that the Holy Spirit will use to teach us about this wonderful truth of now laboring not for the Lord in our restricted prescribed ways in conforming to our denominational dogmas, but to lead us in the paths of righteousness, to lead us in the true abundant life of knowing who we are and what our capabilities are. That's what the Lord wants for me. That's what the Lord wants for you.
Once he saves our soul, he wants to take our lives and that our lives will be hid with Christ in God. That as true followers of him, we can grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. And that growth should never be identified as compromise. That growth should be identified as exactly what it is, walking in the Spirit and learning more and more and more about Jesus every day.
No, it's true. I agree 100%. There's no way I can get more of the Lord, but there are so many ways that he can get more of me. And for me to think I know it all puts me in a position to where I'm not able to learn anything at all.
So Heavenly Father, thank you for these moments together on this edition of the Focus of Freedom. And I look forward to sharing your word with your people and your gospel with everybody right here on the Focus of Freedom on this precious station that we've come now to partner with. To you be glory and to all of our viewers be grace now and always. Amen and amen.
As always, thanks for watching. We appreciate you being there. We really truly do. Wouldn't be any reason for me to be here if you weren't there.
So until next time, may God bless you richly. Then may he use you for his glory and to be a real blessing to someone else. I have the privilege of pastoring and being the Director of Freedom, Tabernacle, Babbard, and the Church and Freedom, Tabernacle, Ministries in Atkins, Virginia. And we are going to get to know one another a lot better through the weeks and months to come.
It's my prayer. But right now you can join us on our Facebook page, Freedom, Tabernacle, Ministries, Atkins, Virginia, or our YouTube channel, Focus of Freedom, Atkins, Virginia, our website, ftministries.org. Or you can download our app, the Freedom, Tabernacle, App, download it for free from any app store. And we can stay in contact that way.
As we labor together with our Lord for His glory and for the advancement of His glorious gospel of grace.