Many are called but few are chosen conclusion.

Welcome to episode 251.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 251. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. As you know, I've been talking about many are called, few are chosen over the last few episodes, and I want to continue this. This might be my last episode on this topic, and I might have one more. I haven't decided. If I can get everything done in this one, I'm gonna let it happen, but if not I'm gonna just go maybe to one more, but I want to go to Matthew 18:4. Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And from our previous episodes where I was talking about the sovereignty of God and how I don't believe God controls everything— I think he could, but he chooses not to— I'm not going to keep talking about that. And if you've got any questions, you can go to some of my other episodes on the sovereignty of God. I believe this scripture puts a spotlight on how powerful being humble is. And I've talked about before that God resists the proud. He actively fights against the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And grace we've defined as all of God's unmerited favor. But all of the stuff— if you could picture a treasure chest in heaven, just a treasure trove. If wherever it is in heaven, the grace of God, wherever God stores his grace, if you've got to picture it, and I've kind of got to picture this stuff, the grace of God, if you walk into the grace of God, God tells us we can come boldly into the throne of grace. So I want you to picture walking in to the throne of grace and appropriating Whatever God has done for you, that's where it happens. And it happens by faith. You are saved by grace through faith. And everything that we do, there's a pattern, and there's a right way to do it, and there's a wrong way to do it. And begging and pleading God is not the way to get things done. It is planting that incorruptible seed, getting it to grow, exercising your faith, and and learning how to use these spiritual tools and these spiritual truths that come from knowing the word of God. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Freedom is going to come from you knowing the word of God. And with that in mind, let's go back to 18:4. Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. You want to be great in God's kingdom? Walk around humble. Just continue to humble yourself. And that doesn't mean just walk around and thinking you're some kind of zero, but understand that you're not all that impressive if you were to put yourself up against Father God or Jesus. Understand that, hey, you are one of God's kids, And you are an important part in God's world. God loves you and you are his favorite. But I'm telling you, there was one superstar in God's kingdom, and it wasn't you and it wasn't me. It was Jesus, and he came and died for all sin. His one death, once for all, he destroyed the grip that Satan has on you and I. He destroyed all of the tools, all of the weapons that he uses. But you have to understand that it is by faith and it's by grace that we appropriate this, and you have to remain humble. And I know I've talked about this, and I know it may seem kind of random, but this is how. It gets done in the kingdom of God, and it's humbling yourself, and it's being submissive to the word of God and to the Holy Spirit. I want to remind you that when you present yourself to God, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is your reasonable service— that is Romans 12:1, where Paul says, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, because God is so merciful present yourself a living sacrifice. He is saying, look, crawl up on the altar, die to self, humble yourself before God, and then all of this stuff starts happening. Then God can release this power into your life. God can then use you because you are now usable to God. In the spirit realm, the power of God, I believe, conducts through believers that are humble. I think humility is kind of like copper to an electrical current. If you were going to try to run electricity and you tried to use wood, if you wired their house with wood and you flipped the switch, nothing was going to happen because wood doesn't conduct electricity. But if you wired your house with copper wire and you had it wired up properly, when you flip the switch the power comes through that copper wire and to the appliance or wherever it is that you're trying to get the electricity to. It's the same with God's Word. If you humble yourself, if you can picture that being the copper wiring to conduct the power of God is humbleness. You take your faith and the grace of God and with your humbleness and humility and under— maybe understanding that you don't have it all figured out, That's where I'm at. But if the longer you stay in this word and the more you meditate on it, and instead of just believing what someone says, you know, there's a lot of doctrines out there, and we've talked about this before, and it's in Mark 7 where Jesus said, the traditions and the doctrines of men have made the word of God of no effect. And when someone just spouts off a doctrine, and if you hear it often enough, then you start believing that as being the truth. And that's what happened back in Jesus' day. Is they were living different doctrines, and it had nothing to do with the commandments of God. Now, it may have been found in scripture, or you might could infer that, hey, this is probably what God was talking about, but it wasn't a specific command. And when you're looking at the commandments of God, and I'm telling you, Jesus, he narrowed it down to two for you and I. Love God and love people. If you get those two right, you're very close to doing everything else right. So if you can love God and you can love people, you are on your way to conducting this power. And if you'll humble yourself and say, God, just use me. I know I'm probably not that usable, but Lord, whatever you can do, I present myself to you a living sacrifice. I humble myself before you on your altar and use me, God. I am a living sacrifice. I commit myself to you. There's other places in the Bible where it talks about us dying daily. If we will just die daily, then we can be used of God. And remember, this is not our kingdom that we're building. I'm not coming on this podcast a couple of times a week so I can build my kingdom. I am coming on this podcast to encourage you to get into the Word of God so the Word of God can do for you what the Word of God does for me. The Word of God is no respecter of persons. If you place this Word into your heart, it will take hold. It will grow. This is an aside note. I have got all of my class done, the 30 Days to Destroy Fear. I've got all of the lessons done. I've got all the plans. I've got it all set up. Now I've got to get the website communicating. We're on our way. We're going to start the first class March 1st, and it'll be a 30-day class. But if you can join us, if you're listening to this before March 1st, I want to encourage you to get involved in this 30 Days to Destroy Fear Using the Bible. It's going to be a great tool, I think, for you to dig into the Word and just see how short a time 30 days is. It may seem like a long time, but if you take 5 minutes— and I think it's like each one of these videos are, you know, maybe 2 or 3 minutes long— we're talking 5, 10 minutes at the most each day to destroy fear in your life. Are you kidding me? Why would you not destroy fear in your life? And I wanna end this lesson and this teaching in 1 Corinthians, and it's 1:26-29. And if you've listened to this podcast, you'll know that this is what I call, and I'm putting air quotes up, my calling. And when I read this, this is how I knew that God could use me. And this is how you're gonna know how God can use you. I want you to, under this backdrop of many are called and few are chosen. I want you to listen to these 4 scriptures where it talks about God has called and he has chosen. I want you to hear that as I read this to you. I memorized this. I've got my Bible open so I can read it so I don't mess it up because sometimes the way I memorize it, I don't always, when I'm speaking it out loud, I don't always speak it word for word. You know, I have superior reading skills, so I'm gonna lay those on you right now. For ye see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world, and the things which are despised, God hath chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are. That no flesh should glory in his presence. And again, I want to remind you that it is all God's kingdom and it's all for God's glory. This is not for your glory. This is not for my glory. When you live your life, you are living it to give glory to God. Now, you can get some recognition and you can be blessed and you should be blessed and you probably are blessed walking around. But it is for God's glory because there's a heaven and there's a hell, and we are trying to get people off of that wide road and onto that narrow path and out of the easy way into the difficult way. And by difficult, and I'm putting up air quotes, that just means that you have to walk by faith and not by sight. The easy road is to just continue to go down the road, use all my five senses and walk through this life and you think that that's all there is to it. No, there is a spiritual truth, and there's a spiritual life, and there is a spirit God, and there's one God, and it is the Lord Jesus Christ. We declare him Lord. We come into the family that Father God created, and it is a wonderful thing. And I want to end this episode and this lesson based on 1 Corinthians 1:26-29. Go read it for yourself again. Many are called, but few are chosen. And you see the calling and the choosing. And I just want to tell you one more time, you do the choosing. It is you. If you humble yourself— faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. We have preached this word, and you humble yourself and say I believe that. And you can choose yourself. You can ask God to put your name in the Lamb's Book of Life for eternity. Forever you will be in God's kingdom. Let's pray real quick. God, I thank you for your word. Holy Spirit, thank you for being with us. Where any two or more are gathered, you are right there. So with this listener and myself, Lord, you are there amongst us. We're talking about your word. I pray that you would enlighten this listener on what it is you want them to take away from these lessons. God, I thank you for helping me open up your word, and I thank you for being in the word and being with me all at the same time. God, we thank you, we love you, we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode.

Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.