That's the title of the message. And I think I did this last time I was here. I kind of titled my messages, but I don't really think about that. But I did give Brother Daniels the title, Things That Happen When We Draw Near to Christ. Amen. Ephesians chapter two. We'll get right into the message. I love Ephesians chapter two. I've kind of been in it of late and studying the chapter and it's good to study the word of God. And we find here Paul is speaking to the Ephesians and really he's speaking to them as Gentiles. That ought to have a significance for us today and he tells them that once they were strangers from God and far from God because of the statues and precepts. Now the Israel, the Jews of course, now it didn't mean they were right with God but they had the statues, the testimonies, the commandments. In other words, they knew things about God, right? And I look at this, you know, I think I've shared with the church here before that my testimony, I got saved a little later in life. In other words, I know what it is to get married and have a career and raise a family as a lost man. But I also know what it is to have a family and children and now grandchildren as a saved man. I'm here to tell you, the second's a lot better. Amen. Praise the Lord. But I understand, too, that some people, just like the Israelites, they had the Jews, they had the commandments, they had the statues, the precepts, they had the tabernacle and so forth, and even the temple later on. In a lot of ways, that's like a lot of people who can grow up in church. You know, people can grow up in church and their parents can take them to church and they can memorize scripture and they can go on soul winning and do bus calls and those types of things, but that don't mean they're saved. Right? I mean, they're doing good things. And then there's some of us, like myself, who, as far as I can remember, until I was an adult, I was in my 30s when I got saved, I don't ever remember not one person ever setting me down and opening the Word of God and saying, okay, this is Jesus Christ, and this is what he did on the cross. I didn't really understand the significance of any of that as an adult man with children. Right? And so I was certainly, I kind of sympathize here with what Paul was saying. I was estranged from God. In other words, not only was I lost, but I didn't even have any knowledge about God, right? And so sometimes I kind of see some relevance there, and that's who Paul is talking to. He's speaking to those Gentiles who didn't have some of the privileges that the Jews had as far as the knowledge of God. Now, that doesn't mean we're without excuse, right? Romans chapter 1 takes care of that. But he goes on to say that even they are saved, just like the Jews, by the grace of God, not of works, right? So it doesn't change the, there's no difference between a Jew getting saved or a Gentile getting saved or anybody getting saved, it's still all through faith, right? We understand that. But he's making this significance specifically to these Gentiles to help them understand that it's through the blood of Christ. And that is, of course, faith in the blood of Christ, amen? In other words, depending on Jesus to get us to heaven and not of ourselves, not of our works, right? And it's the same for everybody. And really what he boils this down to, especially in chapter two, is to say there's really no distinction between the Gentile and the Jews. In other words, we all have equal access to God. Amen. Isn't that wonderful? And I praise the Lord for that. So with that mind, I want us to look at, beginning there with verse 12, Ephesians chapter 2 verse 12, it says that at that time, now remember who he's talking to, he's talking to the Gentiles here that had been saved, right? He said at that time, you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. There's a lot of sad verses in the Bible, that's one of them. Look at that, let that sink in. Having no hope and without God in the world. But then we see maybe one of the happiest verses, if you will, but now in Christ Jesus, we who are sometimes we're far off are made nigh, there it is, by the blood of Christ. Notice verse 14, for he, that is Jesus, right? For he is our peace who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. And again, he's making some, some references there to the Jews and to the Gentiles, and I'll explain it a little bit better later on here in just a moment. It goes on to say in verse, let's see, we'll start with verse 14, "'For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.' Verse 15, "'Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in the ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one new man.'" And again, he's speaking of Israel and the Gentiles. "'In twain one new man, so making peace.'" that he might reconcile both again both the Jew and the Gentile unto God notice in one body by the cross amen having slain the enmity thereby and he, I'm sorry, and came and preached peace to you which were afar off. And there's why I kind of bring it back to those Gentiles who didn't have the privilege that a lot of the Jews had of hearing the truth day after day and understanding some things, but he was preaching to those that were, to the Jew as well, but to those that were afar off into them that were nigh verse 18 for through him we both have access by one spirit that's in reference to the Holy Spirit of God unto the Father and finally verse 19 now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners and all of God's people said oh praise the Lord I hope that you're in that category tonight but fellow citizens with the Saints of the household of of God. Let's pray. Father, we ask your blessing upon the preaching and reading of the word of God tonight. Lord, you sure have blessed us today with a wonderful service this morning, great preaching. Father, just wonderful to see these children up here and memorizing their scriptures. And Father, just just can't emphasize that enough dear God and Father I just thank you for that and we just pray now we'll be able to set the cares and maybe concerns maybe even worries of the world off to the side for just a little bit Lord you brought us all here by divine appointment Lord, you brought us here for a reason. I pray to your God that you just help me to say what I need to say and not say what I don't need to say. And I pray to your God that you'll be uplifted and glorified by it all. In Jesus Christ's name, we do pray. Amen and amen. All right. God bless you. You know, one of the most amazing things we learn from scriptures is that man through the blood of Christ can draw near to God. You know, I was thinking about the special as our Miss Joy was singing there, and I don't recall the name of the song. I don't remember if I've ever heard that song or not, but what a great truth, you know, that God, you know, we ought to be, we should never get used to the fact that God loves us. If you ever start getting used to that, you got a problem. Amen. We should always, you know, now your spouse or your children may think that you're the greatest thing on earth, and you may very well be one of the greatest things on earth, right? But compared to the righteousness and holiness of God, we're not much, are we? We're not, you know. And I hope you understand what I mean by that. But what I'm trying to get you to understand is amazing, not only that we can be saved by God, but that we can draw near to God. Isn't that amazing? And I hope I never get over that. And, you know, this is what's great, you know, I am, you know, the word religion, I'm getting where I don't really like that word. You know, because that can mean a lot of things, right? And what I'm saying is, is if in Christ we need no priest, right? We need no sacraments, whatever that may or may not be. We really only need the blood of Jesus Christ on our life, right? When I see the blood, the song says, right? And not only that, once we have that blood on our life, we can draw near, near, near to our blessed Lord's side. See, that ought to be amazing to you, no matter how long you've been saved. And I think sometimes we need to remember that. And so I just want to give you some reasons, three things that happen when we draw near to Christ. But I want to ask you a question, of course, before we get into this message. I want to ask you, are you saved? Are you born again? And I'm not asking you if you hope so, I'm not asking you if you were baptized, I'm not asking you if you were raised a Christian, I'm asking you if the roof was to cave in and we all died, would you wake up in heaven? Amen? I mean, it could happen, right? And I want you to understand that, that listen, if you're not saved, you've got to start there. Amen? I mean, listen, we'll talk about having peace with God, but you first have also to make peace with God, because right now if you're lost, you're at enmity, we read it there, you're at enmity with God. You are the enemy of God right now. And you need to be saved, right? And so I wanna encourage you with that. But if you are saved, and I hope that we all are, I got another question for you. Now, please don't take this wrong. I have good days, well, I have good months and bad months, right? I mean, you know, we all have our ups and downs, right? Everybody in here that's been a Christian at any time at all, we have those moments in our Christian walk when we, what we call backsliding, right? Well, there was a time in our life when we were close to God, then we weren't so close to him. That's what backsliding's all about, right? But I want to ask you a question, even with that in mind, are you closer to God right now than you've ever been? Another way that might say it, was there a time in your life when you were closer to God than you are right now? And if you aren't, in other words, if you aren't as close to God right now as you was back then, I pray that you're not satisfied with that. I pray that you don't accept that in your life, amen? A Christian should never digress in anything. Now sometimes we have physical things, providential hindrances if you will, that's not what I'm talking about. But what I'm just talking about is letting this world talk you out of things that God has tried to talk you into, right? And so listen, are you closer to God than you've ever been? And if you're not, just start right here, I'm not gonna be satisfied with that, amen. Now, we'll get into this in just a moment, but I just kind of want to get you thinking about some things. I've said before, of course, and I'm not always there, but we should be closer to God right now than we've ever been, but not as close to him as we're going to be in the future. You know, we have this vision, I think sometimes, maybe as we get a little older in life, that our faith and our commitment to God reaches this plateau where we don't need to learn anymore. You know, yeah, I've arrived, right? Well, that's not true. Amen. Nobody's arrived, amen? And what I'm saying is, whether you're nine or 90, right? Hey, listen, there's always room to get closer to Jesus with, to get closer to God. And you should never stop in that quest to draw nearer and nearer to God, amen? There should always be a hunger to get to know Jesus just a little bit better. than I do right now, amen. I believe that, and if you love him, I believe that you will. You know, I think one of the great tragedies in the Christian life, you know, I'm learning that the most miserable people on the planet are not lost people, but are saved people who have gotten away from God. I mean, they're the orneriest bunch of people you'll ever be around. They are, right? And I've probably been there myself at times. Listen, it's a great tragedy. One of the great tragedies of the Christian life is when we don't continue to draw nearer to God. Amen? That never ends well for anybody. And I think that that's a great tragedy. And again, I talked about the family and those types of things. And listen, it just has a far-reaching effect, and I just want to show from our text things we get when we draw near to Christ. Now, I don't know about you, but I want to get all I can get from God. Amen. I don't mean that like in a greedy way. I'm not talking about material things. I'm not talking about... Listen, what I'm talking about is my fellowship, and I heard your pastor use this word before, too, and it's a great word, followership. Hey, listen, that ought to mean more to you than anything, is to have that fellowship and closeness to God. I'm talking to saved people now. You know, there's a lot of saved people that aren't close to God. There's a lot of people that are going to die and make heaven their home, but they haven't really ever done anything for God. And to me, that's a tragedy. And I believe it even affects eternity in so many ways. That's another message. But again, I want to get all I can in my walk for God. And sometimes, anybody in here ever grow cold in the Lord? Amen. I know a couple weeks ago, we grew real cold in the Lord. Amen. I mean, that's bad, right? But you know what I'm talking about, and our fellowship, and we get away from God, and we grow cold. But here's the thing, it's just like, now I grew up on a small cattle farm, and when I was a young teenager, most people were still heating their houses with wood stoves, right? Here in Kansas you don't have as many trees as we do, but you know, and I know that's kind of an in thing now to have a wood stove, but I'm not a big fan of wood stoves. First of all, it's a lot of work. But you know, it's either 98 or 40. You can't regulate it, it's crazy. But my point to that is, is God's fire is always burning hot. You know, listen, we don't grow coal because God cools down. We grow coal because we get too far from the fire. You know, when you get coal, what do you do? You get closer to the stove, right? Hey, listen, if you're far from God, listen, you just need to get nearer to him. We're going to talk about that. So I hope that you're, you know, we're gonna get into this in just a moment. But again, not only that, I wanna be near God, but I wanna get all I can in my walk with God, and so let's just look at some things. And number one, I kinda wanna look at this again on the terms of salvation. And I never know, only God knows the heart, right? No man or preacher or anybody else can look at the conscience of anybody else, right? We don't know the motivations of anybody else, but we do know that there are lost people in the world, right? And we do know that even people can sit in church service their whole life and still be lost, those types of things. And certainly, if you need to be safe tonight, I hope that you come when the invitation is given or if you want to come right now. I'm sure nobody would mind. But also, I want us as believers to be reminded about some things about salvation. You know, we should never get tired of the old, old story. Amen. As a matter of fact, I believe we're gonna spend eternity talking about that with our Lord and Savior. And I know sometimes we get saved a little early in life. And I understand why somebody maybe got saved late in life. Maybe there's a little more zeal there concerning salvation. But listen, whether you got saved when you were a child or somewhere in between, it's a glorious thing to be saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. Amen. It's a miracle. And I praise the Lord for that. But number one is when we draw near to Christ, we do draw near to God. You say, well, wow, that was deep theologically, right? But it's true, and I think we forget that. You see, that's our problem, right? When man fell in the garden, what happened? We were separated from who? From God, right? And so, again, sometimes I think we forget this, and I'm sure your pastor has taught you well about the Trinity and those things, so we're not going to break all that down, but look at verse 13 again. Look at verse 13. It says, but now in Christ Jesus ye who were sometimes were afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. These were people that were lost. Now those of us that got saved a little later in life, remember what it was when you were lost? You know, I don't know about you, but I wish, oh, I wish there were things I could go back and do differently, amen. I wish, now Layla was, we were saved by the time Layla came into our life, but my son, he's 10 years older than her. You know, one of the great regrets of my life is my son knew what it was like to have a lost daddy. And I've tried to do my best to make up for that, but I never can, right? But I want you to understand, I remember what it was to be lost. Amen? And as I said a while ago, you know, I like this better, don't you? But it says there, at that time you were without Christ. You know, that's the worst possible condition that a human being can be in, is without Christ. I mean, you can have cancer, you can have heart disease, but you know, you can have all that and go to heaven, but you could be as healthy as a horse, you could live to be a hundred, but if you die without Jesus, you'll spend eternity in hell. That's why it's sad without Christ. Do you know him as your Savior? But if you do know him as your Savior, I want you to think about this. Where would you be if you hadn't have got saved? I tremble to think. I tremble to think about what my marriage might have been by now. I tremble to think what may become of my son had I not gotten saved, amen? Or maybe would have even become of Layla. Things could be a lot different, couldn't they? But by the grace of God, amen, there go I. And so I want you to understand some things that, listen, if you are saved, praise God, but don't forget that you're saved. Don't forget that through the blood of Christ, you are now able to draw near to that one whom you had offended, amen, the God of heaven. And I think that we need to always be reminded of that, maybe be humbled by it. There was a time when we were alienated, that is from the truth, a time I know in my own life when I knew of no savior, knew of no messiah, didn't even know what all that meant, knew of no law. Certainly I was stranger from the promises of God. And today I look back at that and as I grow a little older in age, but even older in the Lord, whoo, walking on thin ice. Bottom could have fell out at any moment, amen. And I praise God for his grace. You see, I know what it is to live in that darkness, and even though I may not have seen it or understood it that way, but even at that time as a 30-something year old man that was doing pretty well as far as the world was concerned, but I really had no hope, I had no future. The only thing I had was a judgment to come, whether I knew it or not. In the last part of verse 12, as I said, one of the saddest things in all of scripture, without God in the world. But all that changed one day, amen. Praise the Lord. And possibly, when it comes to your salvation, someone shared the Bible, your condition, and he got saved. Maybe it was in a church service, much like tonight's. Possibly a revival. Maybe you got saved at a young age. Your mama or your daddy led you to Christ, but one day you got saved, and now you know the true God. Amen. Hey, don't ever get tired of that. Again, without God in the world, but the saddest thing in the world, but that very next verse, one of the happiest verses as well, but now, verse 13, in Christ Jesus, you were sometimes were far off, or made nigh, and there it is by the blood of Christ, amen. So at one time, lost people were estranged from God, right? Some of the commentaries that I read and most of those guys have been dead for over a hundred years. I think the older the better, right? But that's just me personally. But some preachers from the past would use that term, as far as mankind is concerned, we've committed high treason against God. Certainly that's true. And of course that meant a little more in those days. But the penalty for such a crime is death. Now of course we understand, we're talking about spiritual death, separation from God, right? Forever. I mean, if the best place you could ever be is in the presence of God, the worst place would have to be out of the presence of God, right? You know, listen, heaven's heaven because there is a hell. And hell is hell because there is a heaven, right? We need to understand that. Man's an awful fix, right? No way to reconcile himself with God. That's why I don't like religion. You know, we all come short of the glory of God, right? You know, nobody's ever lived and nobody ever will live good enough to go to heaven. You know, now I consider myself a good old boy, hillbilly, redneck, whatever you want to throw in there, they're all about the same thing. But even good old boys don't go to heaven. Amen. Matter of fact, you know, there's a lot of lost people that are better than a lot of safe people as far as the world's, even I'd rather be around them. But listen, it's all about the blood. It's all about being saved, man. And I want you to understand. And again, that high treason against God is a good way to see that. But again, that is until that one day in my own life that I realized that on a hill far away stood an old rugged cross and the emblem of suffering and shame, amen. And upon that cross hung the very Son of God between heaven and earth. Dying for every sin that ever been committed and every sin that's been committed and even sins that have been have not been committed yet We're paid for on the cross of Calvary. I'm here to tell you your sin has been paid for No way to access that it's through faith and that shed blood on your behalf by faith. Amen. I should say through faith We're saved by God's blood but through faith And so verse 16 really makes that clear. It says, and that he, Jesus, might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the intimacy, there it is, thereby. And so I want you to understand. You say, well, preacher, I'm saved. But I just want you to really understand what it means to be saved. Those that are saved were no longer estranged. That high treason has been forgiven. And now because of the blood of Christ, nothing else, nothing that you've done, but because of the blood of Christ. Because of drawing near to Jesus, you can now draw near to the very God that you were once enemies with. Isn't that amazing? You know, Romans 5, 6, a great verse, I have it here on my notes, but for when we were without strength in due time, Christ died for who? The ungodly. Christ never died for a good person. Because there is none, right? There's none good, right? No, not one. And one of my favorite verses in the Bible is Romans 5, 8, but God commended His love toward us in that while we were what? Yet sinners. While we were yet sinning, Christ died for us. Praise the Lord. Amen, and it's because of that we can draw nigh to God. Praise the Lord for reconciliations. Number one, we draw near to Christ. We do draw near to God the Father. Now let's get down to some practical things here. When we draw near to Christ, number two, we draw near to peace. You know, everybody does what they do because they're looking for some type of peace. Now that peace may not necessarily be good for them, but in their mind, that's if I could just have that, I'll feel better. And sometimes it's a good thing, a lot of times it isn't. But again, when we draw near to Christ, we do draw near to the peace that we need. Let's jump back up to verse 14, for he, that is Jesus, is our peace. You see, peace isn't a philosophy, it isn't a thing, it's a person, and that person is none other than Jesus Christ. He is our peace. Listen, if you don't know Christ, you will not have any peace, amen? And you sure won't have peace in eternity if you die in that condition. And it's kind of like our wood stove analogy, right? You know, there's a very simple reason some aren't experiencing peace. The same reason we get cold. We get too far from the fire, right? You need to get near the stove, you get warmer. You need to get nearer to Christ and you'll have more peace. Amen. It's really just that simple. I'm going to talk about holiness here in just a moment. We kind of get this all mixed around sometimes, and I'll try to explain it the best that I can. But let me just start here. You know, it doesn't really take a, you know, the Holy Ghost is God, right? It's not a force or, you know, ether in the air. The Holy Ghost is God. You either have him or you don't, right? Nobody has more Holy Ghost than you if you're saved. Praise the Lord. But I hope you understand what I'm saying here. that it doesn't take holy ghost power to just do what God says a lot of the time. Amen? Right? I mean, think about it. It doesn't take holy ghost power to open up your Bible and read it. Amen? It doesn't take holy ghost power to understand your Bible chronologically. Some of you men out there can probably quote a Chilton's book more than you can, and that's cars, than you can the scriptures. I say, that's a problem. Some of you know sports statistics way more than you know, thus saith the Lord. So don't give me this, well, you know, I don't, you know, hey, listen, we memorize stuff all the time, right? And so I'm just saying, that doesn't take Holy Ghost power to read the Bible and praise the Lord for these young children, amen? That's wonderful. But you can do it too. Amen. And I'll say this, you should do it. And so I just want you to just kind of keep that in the back of your mind. But what I'm saying is that there's a lot of things that we can just do what God tells us to do. And in the process, we do draw near to Christ in that. And I'm not talking about some, you know, revival in your life. I'm just talking about your reasonable service in most instances. But those things is what causes us to draw near to Christ. And when you draw near to Christ, you have peace. You know, we just make it so hard, don't we? I do. I preach to myself probably as much as anybody. And so, you know, one reason we talked about having peace with God, that happens when we get saved. Praise the Lord for that. But a lot of saved people don't have peace, right? So drawing near to Christ again is this key to peace. And we'll talk about holiness in just a moment. But, you know, there's nothing like the peace, right? You know, I shared with you a little bit about my testimony and understanding, you know, what it is to live a life and, you know, as a lost man and trying to do the best you can, you know, without knowing God and those types of things. For me today, and this is me personally, there's nothing like the peace that having a good family can bring, you know. Now, we're not, you know, we're not a perfect family, you know. We're not the you know, the Christmas card family, right? You know, we have issues, right? And mostly it's my wife that has issues, but I have a few, you know, but, you know, if you're ever in the back seat, you know, with me and my wife in heavy traffic, you know, usually it's not a very spiritual time for us, let's just put it that way, right? And I'm convinced that me and one other guy in Missouri are the only two people on the planet that know how to drive. I'm convinced of it, right? And so y'all pray for me about that. But you understand what I mean, right? You know, we're all dysfunctional. Every family is dysfunctional. Let's just start right there. So I don't want you to think that, you know, I've got it all beat and my children are perfect because they're not. They're pretty close in my opinion, but they're not, right? But you understand what I'm saying. You know, all of us know, and God forbid, but maybe you're part of that type of family that has struggled over the years. I mean, I kind of grew up that way. I mean, I understand what it is, right? And I understand what it is not only to have my own family as a lost person, but I know what it is to grow up in lost people's house. and not to ever be around Christians. I know what that is and I know the language and I know the attitudes. So I know that, I've seen it. So for me, it brings me great peace when I see what God has done in my family's life. And I thank God for that, and that brings me great peace when God is blessing and working in my family and continue to pray for us. It doesn't mean that we don't have difficult times, but I want you to, I said all that to say this. You know, there's another family we gain when we get saved, amen? Look at verse 19. Now therefore, you're no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens, notice, with the saints and of the household of God. Now, you know, I'm not into this invisible universal church, are you? I'm a local New Testament church guy, amen. And what I'm trying to get you to understand is, and I understand the theology here, but I want to make a connection here. I want you to understand that if you don't have a local New Testament church that you regularly attend, I guarantee you don't have peace. I hear it all the time. Oh, you don't need an organized religion. You don't need no public church. Listen, I have church when I'm sitting on my tractor. You know, give me a break. You know, that's not the definition of a church, amen? Amen. It's a group, right, of baptized believers who assemble themselves together to carry out the Great Commission. And it's where we are preached to. I don't know about you, but I need preaching. I need to be smacked around weekly. Amen? Listen, I need to hear the truth. Even if I know it, I need to hear it again. And I need to look at older saints and older people that have been through what I'm going through at this time. I'm telling you, if you neglect the church, if you forsake the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is, you can act like you got peace, you can strut around like you don't need church, but I guarantee you, you do not have peace. And you know it. You know there's something missing in your life. You can say whatever you want. You can puff your chest out and beat it like King Kong. But listen, you do not have peace. Amen. You say, well, how do you know? Because the Bible tells me so. It's not because I know. But listen, if you disobey God, you don't have peace. Amen. Amen. Praise the Lord. Listen, if you can't do the little things for God, you'll never do big things for God, right? So listen, there'll never be a high degree of peace for even a believer that chooses to live outside the fellowship of his Christian brothers and sisters. And, you know, I know, you know, praise the Lord, you know, Heritage Baptist Church, a wonderful group of folks, amen. But I know church families. Amen. You know, just like our, you know, our family, right, our kinfolk, we love each other, but there's issues, amen. And there's issues in every church family. You know why? Because of you. You know? You know? You know, talk about driving. You know, if everybody would just do what I want them to do, I'd be the happiest man on the planet. Right? And we get upset with kinfolk, we get upset with church family. Why? Because they're not doing what we think they ought to do. Well, I got a little secret for you. You're not doing what they think you ought to do either. Amen? I mean, you know, boy, I love brother and sister so and so, and I say this because I've had these conversations and I've had people sit across the desk from me. I love them to death, but boy, they just get on my nerves. I don't like it when they, you know, A, B, and C. And then, you know, a few weeks later, another person comes in and says the very same thing about that person that was in the first week. You see what I'm saying? You know, there may be people that get on your nerves, but guess what? You're getting on somebody's nerves too. Because we're people. We're fallen. Amen? And listen, there is no perfect church family because we haven't arrived yet. Amen? But you ought to thank God for a church family. And you ought to thank God for this church family. You ought to thank God for the man of God and his dear wife and his family. You ought to thank God for these deacons. You ought to thank God for these teachers and all these that serve faithfully and work with these children. You ought to thank God for them. Amen. Because listen, that brings you peace. Amen. And so being in the family of God brings us peace. Amen. Now here's what I believe. If you draw near to Christ, you're going to love what Christ loves. Mmm, think about it. Jesus loves the church. Does he love us because we're so good? No, he loves us despite ourself. Amen. What I'm trying to get, and I'll move on, is if you don't love your church family, you need to draw near to Christ. You see, when we draw near to Christ, we start loving what he loves. And he loves the church. It's his body. Think about it, amen. So listen, if you got some bitterness, you can't forgive somebody, you know, that really wants the same things that you want to glorify God in their life, maybe they don't do it or have the same attitudes you have, but listen, if you can't love them because of that, there's one reason why you're not doing it. You're not as close to God as you need to be or think you are. Amen. You see, that's the, you might be able to quote scripture, you might go soul winning, you might drive the, but you might do a lot of great things for God. But all that is like tinking cymbals and sounding brass, right? If you don't have the love that God has. And it could be you just need to draw nearer to God, and that result will be a love for the church family. Verse 14. I'm trying to hurry. I have no idea what time it is. But he says, For he is our peace who hath made both one and broken down the middle wall of partition between us. Real quickly here, Paul is using an image of, I believe, not the tabernacle, but the temple in the Old Testament days. there were certain walls, it was a little different than the setup of the tabernacle, you know, close but a little different. In other words, there was things that certain types of people had to do to to really worship the true God. In other words, the most holy place, right? That was where the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat, where at times the very presence of God dwelled. And of course, that would be the focal point. And there was the outer court, and that's where animals were bought and sold. Remember what Jesus did there. And really, from what I understand, even Gentiles could go into that area. If your preacher teaches differently, he's right, I'm wrong. But I believe that's what verse 14 was talking about. That middle wall of partition wasn't so much the veil, if you will, but that wall that separated the Gentiles from being able to access the things that the ordinary Jew could. But Paul says, hey, all that's been tore down. We're on equal footing now, right? And that's what he was trying to explain. And there was places, even Jewish women were limited in their access to these types of things. You had that court there, what I believe they called the court of the Israelites, and really all you had to do was just be a Jew to be there. That wasn't really that big of a deal. but you had to be a Jew, but certainly when you get near to the temple itself, you would find the holy place, and now it got a little different, a sacred place, no doubt, for the priest as they ministered, but then there was the veil, and that's not what comes to our mind as partition, that may very well be the case, but that separated the holy place from the most holy place. It was so holy that only once a year it was visited by the high priest, As I mentioned, that's where the Ark of the Covenant, the very presence of God is. Now here's the point, and I'll move on. There were so many things at that, you know, at a time there concerning the Gentiles that would keep the normal man, if you will, separated from the presence of God. And as I mentioned a while ago, if the best place a man can be is in the presence of God, you have to understand the further we are from God, the less peace we have. That's why I'm trying to give you a visual picture here. When Christ fulfilled the law by dying on the cross, right? That wall of separation, the veil literally tore in two. We read about that in the New Testament. But I'm here to tell you if you're saved tonight, there are no partitions, amen. We have unlimited, undenied access to the holy of holies. Amen, praise the Lord. And I hope you never get tired of that. Now, I say that because we're talking about peace, right? You know, some of us think that if we get this prayer answered, answered, then I'll have peace. If I can just get this in my life or this taken out of my life, then I'll have peace. Listen, if having unlimited access to the God of heaven doesn't bring you peace, nothing will. And if you're saved tonight, we all have the same access. Amen. Praise the Lord for that. Praise the Lord for that. So when you draw near to Christ, and we're gonna get into some specifics here in just a moment, but when you draw near to Christ, you do draw near to peace. Now, one more thing here, and I'll try to hurry. When we draw near to God, we draw near to holy living. We need a revival in holiness, but maybe not for the reasons you think. Look at verse 18. We see here a reference to, I believe, the Holy Spirit of God. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit under the Father. Most of us probably understand that to live a separated life, we cannot do it on our own, we have to be yielded to the Holy Spirit of God that's already inside us when we get saved, amen. That's important to understand. Now I want to try to put this in perspective and maybe help you a little bit, because I think sometimes we as Christians, we get it all turned around. Now we have unlimited access to God, we just learned that. We believe when a person, I say we, you know, not just a fundamental Baptist, but I believe a Bible-believing Christian, amen, believes that when a person is truly saved, he or she is what? Eternally saved, amen. And that's certainly a benefit of salvation. We have an everlasting, key word here, relationship with God. In other words, I'm related to my mom and dad, right? I mean, we were born. I can't undo that, right? And if you're born again, that is, if you're saved, it's the same way, amen? He is your heavenly father, that'll never change. But how many of us in here, even though we know who our daddy or our mama is, doesn't always mean we've had good fellowship with our mom and dad, amen? Yeah, amen. You know, that's the Christian. Yeah, you're saved, you're related to God, but your fellowship with God is not what it needs to be, and it's nothing that he's done, but what you've done. You know, we have to start right there. And again, we talk about fellowship. So fellowship is a bit different than relationship. Relationship, praise God, is unconditional. Fellowship is conditional. Unlimited fellowship now is always available for anybody that's saved because of the relationship. Understand that. You know, we might look at a preacher or an evangelist or maybe just a very godly person and maybe say, well, that's them, they can do that, but I can never do that. Well, you're right, you can never do that and they can never do that. What it amounts to is that they're yielded to the Holy Ghost of God inside of them. The very same Holy Ghost that you have. Right? So there's no excuse, right? Now, the intensity of our fellowship, though, and I want to try to break this down, is based on our nearness to Christ. Now, I want to separate something here. A lot of times we think if we do holy things, which we should, We equate that with our nearness to Christ. But I believe, and this is just something that's come to me over even the last couple of weeks, but I believe that we can get near to Christ, amen, it isn't necessarily about holy things. Now here's what I mean. When I first got saved, there was a lot of things I didn't know about the Bible and I was saved in a church as a dear man of God. I love him to death and find people, but they were confused about some things, right? And I was kind of misled in some areas and so forth. But I remember in those days kind of an innocence that I had, right? I was sharing with some men the other day about holiness and I said, man, when I first got saved, you know, I had certain things that I thought was okay to come through the eye gate and the ear gate. Amen. You know, there were certain types of music that I listened to. Come on now. There were certain TV shows that I thought were good. You know, I thought, hey, if it's a John Wayne movie, that's got to be godly, right? Right? The rifleman, I mean, right? You know? And I'm not going to mention music because I don't want to, you know, bring glory to all of that mess. But my point is, I would go and I would hear preaching and I got saved out in North Carolina and loved those mountain preachers. They'd come down and, boy, they'd sling it down, right? And I'd have to go home and get rid of stuff. Well, I can't listen to that anymore. And then I'd go to church the next week and go, well, I got to get, you know, got to take that out of the refrigerator. Right? You know what, hun? I don't think we better watch that anymore. You hear what I'm saying? And so I want you to understand, though, that I understand holiness, but just simply doing what God says, at that time, you know, I didn't know the Bible that well. I was just doing what God told me to do. And I may not even have understood the theological significance of it all. Hopefully I'd understand a little bit better now. But it made my life better. Amen. You see what I'm saying? And I'll try to define this a little bit better. I'm still trying to work it out so that you can understand it. But, you know, I want you to understand that there are things that we do that are holy, and there is holiness, but it's not that we do those things, holy things, to get near to Christ. Listen, you get near to Christ, and then the holy things will come. Does that make better sense? You see, it's my relationship, my fellowship with God that helps me to become more holy and separated in this world which we need a great deal of. but yet at the same time to draw near to Christ really doesn't have anything to do with holiness and following even rules. It's simply loving Jesus, and we do that by church, right? We do that by reading scripture. We do that by praying. I'm just telling you, that's not really a big act of holiness, if you will. That's just getting to know Jesus better. And when you get to know Jesus better, there's a lot of things that come out of that. One of them is you'll live a holier life than you used to. Amen. All of a sudden, those thous and thous nots, they begin to make sense. And you put those things together, and I'm sure your pastor shares that with you. But I want you to understand, if you're saved tonight, God the Holy Spirit has taken up permanent residence in you. We see that in verse 18, but elsewhere in the Bible. For through him, we both have access by one spirit in reference to the Holy Spirit of God. You see, that's our problem. As believers, we all have the Holy Spirit of God if we're saved, but we're not yielded to the Holy Spirit of God. And it's depending on what we're allowing through the ear gate and eye gate, you know, those types of things, I've already explained that. You know, we don't always do what God says, do we? We don't always yield to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and sometimes it's just simple laziness on our part. We don't put ourselves in a position to understand what the Bible says about anything. We'd rather go do something else than to come and hear the word of God preached. And then we wonder why everything unravels and we don't have any peace. Listen, I'm just trying to get you to understand that you have the Holy Ghost inside of you, but we don't always yield to the Holy Spirit. And you don't have to have a lot of Holy Ghost power to simply have a good relationship with Jesus. Amen. But Holy Ghost power will lead to holiness and certainly that's going to lead to some peace in your life. So our nearness to God, you know, always results in holiness. See, a lot of people think, well, I'm going to start doing holy things and I'll get close to Jesus. No, you won't. No, you won't. You might be a good citizen of society, but listen, you got it backwards. You get near to Jesus and the result is holiness. Amen. You say, well, how do I get near to Jesus? You know, and we may think, well, I gotta have Holy Ghost power to get near to Jesus. Certainly you need to be saved, that's the first step. But I just want you guys to understand that it doesn't take holiness to get up tomorrow morning and spend 15 minutes in the Word of God before you go to work. Doesn't take Holy Ghost power to do that. But it'll draw you nearer to Christ. It doesn't take Holy Ghost power to load the kids up. I know it's a hassle and come to church on a snowy night. I know that that isn't easy to do, but listen, it helps you draw near to Jesus. Amen. You understand what I'm saying? We make it so difficult. And as we draw near to Jesus and our children see us draw near to Jesus, hey, listen, then the holiness starts happening. Amen. That's so important to understand. I hope I've helped you with that. So that's just some things that we get when we draw near to Christ. And I just didn't want you to think that you had to do some huge spiritual, you know, mountain climb to draw near to Christ. We have all the tools we need, and of course, the significance of all this is how we handle the Word of God. Your attitude towards the Bible is your attitude towards God tonight. I don't care what you say, I don't care what you think. Listen, if the Word of God doesn't mean that much to you, God doesn't mean much to you tonight. Amen, because this is the Word of God. That's important to understand. The nearer we are to Christ, and I want to be near to Him, and there's not, you know, listen, we can be near to Christ, and listen, we, you know, we get near to those things we love, right? I mean, you didn't really have to have Holy Ghost power to fall in love with your spouse, right? Or to fall in love with a hobby, right? Do you agree with that? Hey, I'm just telling you, in the same way, we get to know Jesus better through the Word of God, right? And you'll start loving Him. And then, of course, to save, God the Holy Spirit teaches how to live and to stay holy in communion with God. I remember when I first got saved, like I said, I was in a church that didn't understand things quite so well and I, you know, there were some things that I didn't understand but I remember I was working and worked for a big manufacturing company in Denver, North Carolina and I got up one morning and I hadn't been saved very long. I just, I was just, you know, I just loved the Lord, you know. I was beside myself. Everybody thought I lost my mind. Praise the Lord, I did, right? And so, I remember I got up one morning and I was like, Lord, I want to spend all day today, every second of the day thinking about you. Lord I want to go to work today and I want you to be on my mind constantly, right? Now that didn't happen. But I tried and that was the longest, hardest day of my life about, right? It was difficult, right? But you know, looking back and understanding some things now, you know, it's not that God is beside us, right? Sometimes we hear, would you do that if Jesus was standing here? And if you're saved, He is. Amen. Now we understand that it's not Jesus that comes in us, it's the Holy Spirit of God. My point is, is we do have God inside of us all the time if we're saved. He is with us, right? And we ought to walk accordingly. I believe that with all my heart. Most days I try to live that way. I want to be yielded to the Holy Spirit of God, but I'm not always. But I know that my nearness to Christ, and that's just simply sometimes doing things that I don't necessarily want to do at the moment, but they help me draw near to Christ. And that regulates the awareness of the Holy Spirit of God that's already inside of me. I mean, really, that's the message. I could have just said that 30 minutes ago and said amen and we could have been done, right? But that's true. I'm saying, you may not be a great reader, you may not understand a lot of things about the Bible, but no one could get closer to Jesus than you can. Amen. You understand what I'm saying? Somebody might know the Bible a lot better, might have a lot more scripture memorized, might do great and mighty things that are noticed by a lot of people, wonderful things, and you might not be one of those persons, but listen, that doesn't mean they're nearer to Christ than you are. Amen. Isn't that wonderful? But the nearer you are to Christ, the more aware you are of the Holy Ghost of God that's inside of you, and that always leads to holiness and peace and understanding our salvation. I hope that's been a help to you. But you gotta be saved, right? And I believe with all my heart, if you don't belong to a local New Testament church, you need to belong to one. And there are certain biblical things that we need to do in order to belong to a church. But I want you to understand that it's not just going to church, but you ought to be praying every day. We all have an area of rule. You ought to be reading, memorizing scripture. You ought to be serving your church as much as you can. Sometimes we have providential hindrances, and of course, that's your pastor's direction. You need to let go of this world. This world is your enemy. This world has nothing to offer the Christian. This world will drag you away from God. It won't take you to God. Those that don't love the Lord will never help you serve the Lord. Right? Listen, maybe God's speaking to your heart in some way. If you need to be saved, I'm gonna hand it over to your pastor in just a moment. If you need to be saved, you come get my attention, his attention. You need to rededicate your life. Say, preacher, I'm saved, but tonight there's been some things said and I need to make things right. You know, nobody in here would say that we have to follow a set of rules to be saved. And I want to tell you something. You may have walked in here far from God, but you can renew that fellowship just like that. There's not a set of rules to renew that fellowship with God either. Amen. If we confess our sins, Christian, if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. No reason for you to leave here. not right with God tonight. And I hope that we all leave here today closer to God when we came in. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this day and Lord, thank you for the attentiveness. Lord, I kind of lost track of time there but I don't even know how long I've been up here to your God but I hope and pray that it's been a blessing and a challenge