It’s good to be here with you. If you have your Bibles, would you turn with me to Matthew 3.

Matthew 3, verses 13-17 is where we’ll be this morning.

Matthew 3, verses 13-17. Matthew 3, verses 13-17.

We’ll read that together.

It says, Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him.

John would have prevented him saying, I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me. But Jesus answered him, Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

Then he consented.

And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water. And behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. And behold, a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

When you think about the month of October, you don’t think about kite flying.

But I was home with the kids and Jessica a couple weeks ago, and I don’t know where. They had a kite in the closet, one of these little kid kites, a little cheap thing, and they wanted to do the kite. So we’re freezing outside and putting this kite together.

And Darcy would run as fast as she can across like two yards, and run, run, run, run, run. She would get it up, and it would stay, and then it would come down. And Dawson would take his turn, and twice as much leg work there. And he’s running, running, running, running, running, running. And it would stay for a second, and then it would come back down. It kind of reminds you of Charlie Brown. He can never get that kite. He can never get a kite up in the air. But the problem was, there’s no wind. You need wind for a kite to fly. A kite needs to be filled with wind in the same way a sailboat must be filled with wind if it’s going to go and if it’s going to move and really do what it’s designed to be in the life it’s supposed to live. And last week, John talked to us about John the Baptist’s repentance. And John said,

true repentance is what you must do to get into the kingdom.

But now John is talking about, Matthew’s kind of bringing this into the gospel. John’s talking about what we must have. Matthew’s pointing out this interaction between Jesus and John, what we need to have within us to truly live out a kingdom life. And John and Jesus and their conversation and what happens, it’s nothing, nothing less than a spirit-filled life.

That’s what we’re considering for the first time in Matthew’s gospel, friends. Yes, we need to repent, but we need to have the spirit. This is synonymous with kingdom life. So that’s what we’re going to look at this morning. So look back at verse 13 with me. It says, Then John came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, I need to be baptized by you. And do you? Do you come to me? But Jesus answered him, Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

Then he consented. So Jesus has been in Nazareth like we’ve been talking about. He’s living in anonymity. For the first time in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus comes on the scene as an adult. And Jesus is getting ready to start His ministry. But right before He begins His ministry, He goes to the River Jordan to be baptized. He’s baptized by John the Baptist. And John is reasonably so perplexed. And he puts it to Jesus with a question. John says, I need to be baptized by you. And yet you come to me? And it’s John wrong.

John recognizes his need for Jesus. That’s the good thing, isn’t it? Because recall, John said his baptism was an outward external baptism. It was water baptism. It only was a sign of, of confession and repentance where here stands the one who supposedly could give the true baptism of cleansing and purification. And yet he wants John’s baptism. John’s not wrong. John just doesn’t yet really understand. Jesus doesn’t tell John he’s wrong. Jesus just talks over top of his question. He says, Let it be so now, thus it is fitting to fulfill all righteousness. So John says, Hey, let’s just do it now. Let’s do it now because it’s appropriate if we’re, if we’re going to fill up. This idea here in the Greek, it’s a, it’s a net that’s full of fish. It’s a container that’s completely filled up. So Jesus says, for us to fulfill, fill up completely and entirely all the full quantity of righteousness, John, this is what’s got to happen right now. This will lead to that. And I want to define righteousness and make sure we understand it. I think pastors can be guilty of throwing around big terms and, you know, God is sovereign. Amen. And God’s amazing. He’s amazing grace and the atonement of Christ’s blood and we all amen it and apparently we all understand what it means. So I don’t want to stay too general on that. Just define righteousness because righteousness is paramount to both the scriptures and this New Testament theology of the kingdom that we’re talking about here in Matthew. So we really need to understand it as we’re talking about the kingdom. So one Bible commentary or dictionary says it like this. Righteousness is conformity to a certain set of expectations which vary from role to role. Righteousness is fulfillment of the expectations in any relationship whether with God or people. It is applicable at all levels of society and is relevant in every area of life. Therefore, righteousness denotes the fulfilled expectations in relationships between man and wife, parents and children, fellow citizens, employer, employee, merchants, customers, ruler and citizens, God and man. Depending on the fulfillment of one’s expectations,

an individual could be called righteous. Righteous or wicked.

And so given the example before, when you think about marriage, marriage is two people saying, hey, let’s make an agreement here about what’s right and not right as it relates to one another. Let’s set expectations. And if these things are fulfilled, then our relationship is happening as we agreed upon. So that’s the great problem with adultery. When someone commits adultery, hold on, we said this was right and you went outside the boundaries of it. That’s what transgress means. It’s to go outside the lines of. So when we’re talking about our relationships with people, we’re talking about our relationship to God, talking about relationships in all of culture and what culture and society thinks, here’s the thing that we always have to remember. God’s standard of righteousness is the gold standard of righteousness. We always have to ask ourselves, what does God say is right? And then bring ourselves into that. So go all the way back to the garden. So we got out talking about the garden last week. We’re talking about it again this week. In the garden, all Adam and Eve had to do was this. They could have said, taking a bite of this fruit, would God think this to be right or not right? That’s all they would have had to do. You go forward to the Israelites and the Mosaic law. God gave them the civil law, the ceremonial law, moral law. The civil law told them how to act as a society. The ceremonial law told them how they should give offerings and how they should live out their religion. And then the moral law, which is eternally applicable, tells them just what’s right and wrong. And yet, time and time again, they couldn’t keep it. Shortly after making that agreement with God, what did they do? They transgressed it. They went outside of what was expected of them. And friends, this points to the great problem that you and I have been discussing for the last several weeks. You and I are not right. How’s that for a Sunday morning encouragement? You’re not right. You and I are not right, certainly in the way Jesus is talking about it in this full, complete, complete sense. And here’s what I want to do. I want to go through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and make this list of everything that’s right and everything that’s wrong. And I’ll pass out all these lists. And then anytime you go to think something or do something or talk to anybody, look at your list and see if it’s right or wrong. The problem, though, isn’t just a lack of knowledge of what’s right and wrong. The problem is a great lack of passion to do what’s right and wrong.

That’s the problem. You and I, sinners, are not naturally disposed to desire God’s full righteousness. We’re not capable. And if you think you are, you’re thinking wrong.

Have you ever driven behind someone going 40 in a 45?

Have you ever told a two-year-old to not touch the toilet paper and yet it’s all over the floor in the bathroom?

Have you ever been talked about behind your back? You’ll find out real quick you don’t have a passion for righteousness. You have a passion for revenge. So big and small, the situations are aplenty, friends, in which we discover we don’t, in fact, have a passion for righteousness. In fact, Paul says our passions run in the opposite direction. See what Paul says in Romans 7, verse 18.

He says, For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. I have the desire to do what’s right, not the ability to carry it out. I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep doing. Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. So Paul constantly has this war of what’s right, what’s wrong, and not being able to actually carry it out. So to go back to our passage, friends, we need Jesus because Jesus alone has a real passion for righteousness that’s filled up completely. That’s the complete kind that we need to have before God and man that you and I simply don’t. Jesus, by His baptism then, He’s not confessing sin. Everyone else, why were they baptized? Because they were confessing sin. Hey, I’m not right internally, so they were externally showing it. That’s not why Jesus is being baptized. Jesus is being baptized as a public proclamation and identification as the Messiah who was to come. His was a great proclamation that, hey, the Deliverer is finally here. Jesus was identifying with the sin procession that He alone was going to fix it. Jesus’ baptism marks the arrival, now immediate launch, of His ministry because it was His passion to what? Fulfill all righteousness. So the glory of baptism for you and I is this. We’re baptized into this full, complete, righteous Christ. It’s good for us. We come up out of those waters. I’m celebrating the victory of Jesus, what He did, man. I’m enjoying the spoils of Christ’s victory. But when Christ came up out of those waters, it was go time. It was mission time. The spirit baptism of every believer in church history depended on this one man coming up out of the waters and not having one misstep. This one man would have to fulfill all righteousness or every other baptism would be, in fact, invalid. But praise God, Jesus remained faithful to His passion for full and complete righteousness. So to say that you and I are filled with the Spirit is to say we’ve been filled with the passion for full, complete, and total righteousness just like Jesus. What Jesus did in His life and ministry is unique. It can’t be reproduced or replicated. And so Jesus will get the glory for doing what He did for all eternity. You and I in heaven will sing His praises and gladly so. But second, Christ is our example. It will not do to sit back and say, well, Christ, He accomplished all righteousness in my place. No, it will only do to imitate and follow Him in His passion. Peter says in chapter 2, verse 22, He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return. When He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree. Listen to this, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. So John baptizes Jesus so Jesus can baptize His church. And that baptism is into nothing less than a real passion for righteousness. So our definition last week of the kingdom of God was this, the spiritual rule and reign of God in my heart, mind, and life. That’s the kingdom of God, the spiritual rule and reign of God in my heart, mind, and life. So when we’re talking about Jesus’ full, complete, filled up righteousness, it’s one and the same. When I’m following Jesus in His righteousness, what’s happening? The kingdom of God’s flooding me. And if the kingdom of God has flooded me, what will it be? Well, it will be me having a passion for the righteousness of Jesus.

And so often you hear the modern mantra, I want Jesus, but I don’t want religion. And I guess I get the sentiment behind it, but it’s a dangerous one because it assumes this, that all theology and doctrine really spoils and gets in the way of really living for God. Which is a farce, and here’s why. To fail to love God with your mind is simply to fail to love God.

Everyone has a theology. There’s no one without a theology. Everyone has certain ideas of what they do and don’t believe about God, what they do and don’t believe about people. And inevitably what you think your theology is going to shape how you live. So if you were to say, a theology is not my thing, I just want to love people in Jesus’ name, what you’re saying is your theology, is already perfect, it doesn’t need any correction or repair, and you know full righteousness and you’re able to love in full righteousness. That’s like a little arrogant to me, I think. So righteousness is not an emotional rush of feeling, but nor is it either a cold list of doctrines. It’s me being awakened joyfully to the truth about what God says is right, and then working to bring my whole life under that truth in mind, soul, body, and strength. That’s what it is. That’s what Christ has called us to. Paul says in Romans chapter 2 verse 1, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living sacrifice,

holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by what? By the renewing of my mind. So if my mind’s not renewed, my life’s not going to be renewed, which means it’s not going to be a living sacrifice devoted completely and totally to God. So growth in knowledge of righteousness, that will increase, our passion for righteousness. Growth in knowledge of righteousness will increase our passion for righteousness. And it has so much to do with what we talked about last week in thinking about bearing fruit for Christ. To bear fruit for Christ, to abide in Him, I need to grow in knowledge of Him. The Spirit cannot apply to me nothing. He has to apply something. And if I’m starving myself of Christ, what is the Spirit going to apply to me? It’s a work on myself to apply my mind to the Scriptures, so then the Holy Spirit can appropriate that within me. Jesus said, Jesus said, when the Spirit of God comes, He will lead you into all truth.

So friends, it’s a question of do we identify fully with Christ’s passion of righteousness in mind, soul, and body. That is a mark of a Spirit-filled life.

You know when you’re younger and you think like, oh, that would be so great when I get older and I can do that. And then you get there and it’s like, oh, why did I want to do this? Like driving. I have to drive myself around everywhere. Why do I want to do this?

I remember thinking about that like cutting the grass. Like, oh, if I could cut the grass someday, that would be so cool. And then your dad lets you do it and you’re like, oh, now I’m stuck with this. And like, you’ve got to cut the grass every Saturday. It’s awful. And I remember this with taking out the garbage. Taking out the garbage was always my problem. And I hated it because my mom would wake me up on like a freezing cold morning at 6 a.m. Like, Tom, you forgot to take the garbage out. Go take the garbage out. And you’re running outside half naked and the garbage man’s coming and you’re like, here, please take it. You know, and like you barely make it. And I hate that because I’m 29 years old and that’s still the problem.

My wife hits me, did you take the garbage out? I say, quit asking me that. She said, but you always forget. And I often forget to take the garbage out. I was telling Jessica, I think in the car yesterday, I said, I feel like I keep talking about righteousness. Like, I keep preaching that and like almost like are we going to get bored with this? And she said, but isn’t that a theme in Matthew, righteousness? It is a theme and it made me realize it’s a grace of God that righteousness is a theme woven throughout Matthew because we’re a forgetful people and we forget the things we need to know. We forget the things that we need to live out. We’re a very leaky people. And as much as we may come into contact with what we love in a moment’s time about Christ, friends, we have to constantly go back to the source and drink of it and be filled again with the knowledge and passion for Jesus. So friends, we must dwell on, we must study Christ. We must consider His excellent life, what He says, what He does. It’s a great privilege to have one of these, a copy of the Word of God. And you know what’s a shame is we live in a day and age in which people probably have multiple versions of the Bible, multiple copies at home. You’ve got your smartphone and you’ve got access to like every Bible translation you could ever want. And yet, biblical illiteracy has never been high. So you see, you understand it’s not a lack of knowledge. It’s a lack of passion to know it. Friends, we need a conviction to know and learn and grow in this Christ. Read this Word. Study it. Dwell upon it. Memorize it. And you say, well, I don’t even know how to approach the Bible. I’ve never done that. Please let me know. I would love to walk with you through the Scriptures and teach you what it means to have a very real relationship with the living, active Word of God so that you can know, know, know Christ and so be transformed into His image. If you have the Spirit of God, you will desire this and you will learn it. If you do not, this will not be important to you. It’s as simple as that. There’s no, I’m halfway in between, like I’m not doing Jesus right now or I’m a Christian, but you know, I’m on the outside right now. It’s either a full passion to know Christ or you don’t have the passion. So don’t fool yourself over it, friends. Ask God to awaken in you a love for Jesus that you would love to have. You would want to know Jesus more and more. If I want to know my wife more and more, I don’t not spend time with her. I spend time with her. I talk to her. And I grow more into just who she is and we just bond together and we’re just shaped and become like this person together. And it’s the same thing with Jesus as I learn more about Jesus. Like He’s shaping and forming me like I’m growing up into Him more and more and more. So again, it’s that in you, that passion and that desire will be a telltale sign of whether or not you are a Spirit-filled person.

Amen.

Spirit-filled life.

Verse 16.

And when Jesus was baptized, immediately He went up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened to Him and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down to rest on Him.

So John consents and I’ll do this. John baptizes Jesus and it says, because when Jesus comes up out of the water, Jesus sees the heavens open and the Spirit of God come and rest on Him in the form of a dove. So Jesus has the Spirit resting on Him. So see that Jesus is both now commissioned by His baptism and prepared because He has the Spirit of God resting on Him. Jesus says it about Himself in Luke chapter 4 verse 17. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to Him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, the Spirit of the Lord is upon, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captive and recovering of sight to the blind to set at liberty those who are oppressed. So Jesus is saying, I’m the one with the Spirit that Isaiah was talking about. And then the apostle John, he says a very similar thing in John chapter 3 verse 34. He says, for he whom God has sent utters the words of God for He gives the Spirit without measure. So old and new, Testament are making it blistering clear here for us. Jesus had the power of the Spirit on Him. And we should not think, I think you see those cartoons when you’re a kid, like Jesus is standing there in the waters doing this with John. It’s very likely no one else could even see this going on. It’s very likely only Jesus was seeing this. Nothing in the Scripture is saying no one else saw it. And so you see this thing. Actually what Matthew says is immediately He went up out of the water. So as soon as Jesus came up out of the water, He starts walking. He’s going up on the banks of the Jordan. What’s He doing? He’s immediately going to execute His ministry because He has the presence and power of God on His life. He sets Himself to do the thing He’s called to do because He’s now equipped with the Spirit to go and do it. And that’s far more incredible than I think we realize because you think, oh, Jesus is God. Yes, Jesus is God, but Jesus is all man. And as a man, Jesus willingly suspended His full exercise of His power and His manifestation of His own glory. While He was a man. And so as Jesus lived His life and did His ministry, He was doing so under the leadership and power and influence of the Holy Spirit. Now that’s incredible, friends, because as Jesus says, come and follow me, He’s not saying come and follow me in the power of a lesser spirit. Jesus is calling us to live in the power of the same Spirit in which He did His life and ministry. So whatever God’s calling us to what God wills for us, the Spirit of God that led Christ, that’s the same Spirit, friends, that’s upon us. And Jesus was very clear about this. Look at it in Luke 24, 49. Here’s what He says to His disciples. And behold, I’m sending the promise of my Father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. So Jesus says, do not go and try to do what I did. Do not go and follow me until you have the Spirit. Jesus does not advise doing ministry without the Spirit.

I don’t know that we always, you know, think about how dependent we are on the Spirit. But then on the Spirit of God, and if you read the early part of Acts, you see it plainly. In Acts chapter 4, it says Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit. And the religious leaders, they said, this is an uneducated common man. Yet they couldn’t speak against him because he had such boldness in the Spirit. They were silent. And then Stephen in Acts 6, Stephen’s a common man. He’s a deacon, man. He’s waiting tables. But it says he was doing signs and wonders in the power of the Spirit. And they couldn’t withstand his wisdom. He couldn’t withstand either because he was speaking in the Spirit. And you think about the Apostle Paul. Paul persecuting the church. And he’s laying there blind and Ananias comes and puts his hand on him and says, Brother Saul, receive the Holy Spirit. And look at Paul’s life after that. So how do we ever get around to thinking we can live for God without the power and the presence of God upon us? We cannot do it, friends. Our Christian lives will be ineffective for the cause of Christ if not, and the command is simple. Paul says, be filled with the Spirit. Paul says in Galatians, walk by the Spirit. There’s no magic formula. It’s like some incantation I can say, get more Spirit on me. There’s really nothing about that. Here’s really what you deduce from the Scriptures. How do you get more Spirit and be filled with the Spirit for effective, powerful ministry? Ask for it. God blesses the one who asks for the things which please Him. Our Father says, ask and I will give to you and it will please the Father to empower us and equip us for what we need. For what He has willed for us to do. So if we are seeing the church be ineffective in its evangelism and its love for itself and making disciples and growing in holiness, friends, we cannot say there is a deficiency in the Spirit. We must say there is a deficiency in our desire to see the Spirit show up in a mighty and powerful way.

Because you and I can’t affect change for God’s kingdom. In our sinful, fallen nature, we cannot affect spiritual realities.

Paul says, this in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. But we have this treasure in jars of clay. We’re jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to

us. So you see the great error then in laboring for the kingdom of God and the power of man. There is no substitute for what God will do in His Spirit when His people desire it. What will God do in and through the person? What will God do in and through the church that lays aside pride, that lays aside apathy, and desires it more than food, and desires it more than drink, more than sleep? God, let your Spirit fall on this place when we take up God’s challenge. God says, test me. See if I don’t open up my storehouses. You know what Pentecost was?

It was God opening up His storehouses and flooding His people with what they needed to live an effective life for the kingdom of God. So friends, let us bathe in the humility of Christ but once we’re done, once we’ve bathed in the humility of Christ, let us do what Jesus told us to do. Dress ourselves in the power that comes from on high.

And I’m not arguing for some kind of Christian barbarism like sitting in a circle and saying kumbaya and everything will be fine. You know, ignore practical common sense. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying, friends, if our hope is in ourselves and not in the Spirit of God showing up in a mighty and powerful way, our works are in vain. And here’s what Paul says, your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Your labor in the Lord is not in vain. And Paul says at the end of all things when God tests things by fire, tests our labors, it will be the wood and the hay and the stubble of the flesh that burns up. But what the Spirit produces will be the gold, will be the silver, will be the fine jewels that last for an eternity to come. What are we doing in the power of the Spirit of God? Paul says, who is Paul? Who is Apollos? Just God’s fellow workers. But he said, God brings the growth. God brings the growth.

Sometimes you’ve got to lift heavy furniture, carry a couch to my house. I was doing this a few weeks ago. And what do I see underneath me? I see Dawson doing this.

You know, he’s more in the way than anything.

But you know, you sit it down. Hey, thanks buddy. I appreciate that.

I think that’s something like

living for the Lord. Friends, God doesn’t need us.

What do we have to offer?

Nothing. That’s right.

But God chooses to use us when we humbly say, Lord, I depend on You. And when I think about effective ministry, I always think about Moses up on the mountain. And Moses says to God, I want to see Your glory.

And what does God tell Moses to do? Go stand on that rock and watch me.

Friends, effective ministry, the effect of Christian life isn’t about doing something. It’s asking God to show up in His power and do something. God, I want to see You pass by in Your glory. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus says the farmer, he casts out the seed, he sleeps and he rises, yet he knows not where the growth comes from. It is the power of the Spirit alone.

So friends, I think we have to press ourselves to consider, are we a dependent church?

Are we a dependent church?

It doesn’t matter numbers. It doesn’t matter about money. It doesn’t matter about facilities. It doesn’t matter about knowledge and wisdom. Here’s what matters. It matters to be an effective church for the Kingdom of God. Are we dependent upon His Spirit? And if we cannot say that we’re a prayer-dependent people, we can count on seeing no fruit or fake fruit.

But I’d rather see our community amongst ourselves, our study of the Word, our prayers, our proclamation of the Gospel. I’d rather see it all animated and filled with the power of the Spirit of God. Friends, this is how Jesus lived. And this is how Jesus is telling us to live.

So it’s an obedience issue.

Spirit-filled life. Go back to verse 17.

It says, And behold,

a voice from heaven said,

This is my beloved Son,

with whom I am well pleased. So the Father says, Hey, this is my beloved.

This is my dear.

This is my cherished Son. You know, sometimes I… Dawson came in this morning. He was up early. And I looked and I just looked at him. I’m just, man, I love this kid. I’m just thankful for this boy. But how that must pale to what the Father sees when He looks at us. How much He cherishes His Son. He’s well pleased with Him. It means He takes great delight in Him. It means there’s a, there’s a high degree of pleasure when the Father looks on the Son.

Great delight and pleasure in this Son. And the question is why?

Why?

There’s a parable at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, and by God’s grace, we’ll get there in time. Matthew chapter 22 is the first sermon I ever preached. In Matthew chapter 2, Jesus tells this story about King.

And this King is throwing this feast. For a wedding feast for His Son. And He sends out to get all the people that should be there and they don’t want to be there. Sends them out again. Hey, come. And they kill the servants. And they go on about their business. And so the King says, hey, just go invite any and everybody that wants to come. Just tell them to come into the kingdom and feast with me.

Yet the King comes upon a man and He says to the man, like, where’s your wedding garment? Like, why don’t you have a wedding garment on?

See, no one would have had the appropriate clothes to come into the kingdom. They would have been distributed at the door. The man chose not to dress himself in the king’s attire.

And so he was bound. He was thrown into the outer darkness. Friends, Jesus pleases the Father because He is the very image of what it means to live and be in the kingdom of God. Jesus is righteous as no one else is righteous. When the Father looks at His Son, He sees full, complete righteousness. He sees full and complete obedience. He looks on Jesus and He sees the full breadth and manifestation of holiness and godliness. That’s what the Father says. He sees in His Son. And He alone owns that glory and we should honor and praise Him for it. But friends, let’s not be so stupid and arrogant to think we can come in the kingdom and not dress ourselves in that very same righteous robe.

We’re bid to be filled with the Spirit, have the indwelling presence of the Spirit to both save us, but then to be filled with the Spirit time and time again for effective, powerful ministry. Why would we want to do anything else?

It’s the free grace of God to us this morning. It’s the free grace of God.

So friends, let us be a church that grows in knowledge. I want to know more of Christ so I can love more of Christ, so I can become more like Christ in righteousness and holiness and just show that to the world. Let’s be a church. Let’s be Providence Fellowship, a holy, righteous, usable church. Let’s be humble. Let’s be dependent on the Spirit, praying at all times and all seasons that God, You would have Your way. You would show up. And when we do that, we’re living in the power of the Spirit. We’re looking like Jesus. And by God’s grace, we’re pleasing to the Father because when the Father looks on us, He doesn’t see us. He sees His Son, Jesus.