Well, welcome to the live stream portion of the Household of Faith in Christ weekly gathering on Saturday evenings. For those that are used to watching us live, we're getting a rather tardy start today, but that's because we have a special guest making a special presentation, and hopefully it's gonna be edifying to you. I think it's on Galatians chapter five, so you wanna... wanna follow along, get your Bibles open and ready to follow along, you can do that. If you wanna learn more about us, go to our website, HouseholdOfFaithInChrist.com. There you can find our previous sermons. We'll get back into our revelation series next week, God willing. And there's trusted resources that we've vetted that if you're looking like, where can I turn to get good information? We've put some stuff up there that's not ours, but we've linked to other stuff to help you in that regard. You can link to the Faith Debate radio show that I do through our website as well. So it's kind of a one-stop shop, householdoffaithinchrist.com. So I'll let you maybe handle anything you care to say by way of introduction in the video, but everybody here already kind of knows who you are, and this is mostly for us gathered here, so I'm not too, but there might be some things you would like to have for public consumption, so I'll let you do that. And I'll just, I guess, set this over here so it picks you up better. Does that work? Should I just keep sitting here or go back there? Oh, you can go back there. Now's the time. Now's the time. You're on. In season rep. My name is Bernie Beal. I'm an evangelist. And I've just begun my 40th year in ministry, and I've been married for the same amount of time. No coincidence there. My wife Linda, who's not with me, but my youngest son Daniel is here. Linda and I, 16 years ago, after 23 wonderful years with Campus Crusade for Christ, we launched our own local ministry, kind of here in the greater DC area. I live, in fact, here in Frederick County. And they even have a shirt to prove it, that we have our own ministry. Great Commission Families. We were really kind of surprised. You think how many ministries talk about the Great Commission? Think how many ministries talk about the family? And so we thought, well, certainly someone has the name Great Commission Families. And we left, as I said, Campus Crusade for Christ. It was a warm party, and I'm still invited back to speak for all kinds of things. We went from the world's largest Christian ministry, Campus Crusade for Christ International. By the way, they never changed their name. It was the U.S. ministry that changed their name to Crew. Every national ministry could have its own name. Like in the Middle East, all the nations that have a Campus Crusade for Christ in the Middle East don't go by the name Campus Crusade for Christ. They go by some indigenous name. But we went from the world's largest ministry, which I didn't know that until we read Dr. Bright's obituary, to the world's smallest ministry, meaning just us, just Linda and I. Our original idea, which is still in play, our idea from the beginning was to create and lead family-friendly evangelistic outings, especially using America's Christian heritage and spiritual insights from the past to help us to live in the present as we look to eternity to live in for the Lord. And tonight, the presentation that I put together, actually, I put this together a couple of months ago. I got a call from a pastor. Up in Pennsylvania, one of the elders in his church is a student who was involved in our ministry years ago. We've been in touch ever since, and occasionally, every few years, I go up there and preach. And he kind of called in a little bit of a hurry, hey, can you come in a couple of weeks? And I thought, well, yeah. And then I thought, well, what am I learning lately? What am I talking about lately in ministry? And what's a passage from God's Word that relates to it? And I thought about some of the statues that relate to freedom and liberty in the Capitol, United States Capitol, and I thought about the passages that I often use with those particular statues from Galatians chapter 5. The repeated thing, if you ever go with me into D.C., or anywhere for that matter, And I'll tell you some interesting history, hopefully it's interesting to you, but then I'll say, and that reminds me of a Bible verse, and then I'll share the Bible verse. So what I'm gonna do is, so if you have your Bibles, open it up to Galatians chapter five. Now let me put something on the screen here. I forgot to get the power, oh there it is. And turn this on. Power up and re-engage. So push this button, and that wakes that up. The title of what I've put together here is, Freedom in Christ, Freedom in America. Not quite yet. The light's solid. And Galatians chapter five has 26 verses. I'm gonna do selected verses, so we're not gonna do a solid walkthrough of all 26 verses. But I'm gonna start with verse number one. Pausing. I don't like silence, but sometimes silence is good. Yeah, it's gotta warm up again. Oh, maybe it doesn't. What happens when I push that? There, that's what happens, that's good. Yep, full screen. In our 23 years with Campus Crusade for Christ, from current slide, the last three years, Well, I'll preface this by saying, we used to live in Fairfax, Virginia, had a lot of friends who were in the military, and there was a saying that if you worked at the Pentagon, the longer your title, the lower your rank. So I want to tell you my last title with Campus Crusade for Christ. I was assistant to the national director of Bridges International, which is the international student ministry of the campus ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ USA. So you put that on a business card and you've got a really long title. So I like this little slide here because it has welcome in many, many languages. Now let me see which button makes it go forward. There we go. Here's my family in 1991. So this is a 4D picture. In other words, it includes time. The two snapshots in time on the left side in 1991. So now 31 years ago. Linda and I moved to the D.C. area, so you can see the Washington Monument in the background. We stood on the sidewalk with the Washington Monument in the background and had all our pictures. So Josh was eight, Aaron was six, Sarah was four, and Daniel, sitting right here, was two. And we came back to the same spot 28 years later with now three times as many people. So that's everybody on the right. Our older two sons were married, and between them... Okay, this is a joke, so don't panic. Between them, we have four and a half dozen grandchildren. Four live in Virginia, and a half dozen live in West Virginia. So that's 10. That's a personal family joke. My father was the youngest of 10. And when we were on vacation back when my sister and I were like 9, 10, 12 years old, we'd be at like a Howard Johnson's restaurant. They don't even exist anymore. And my mom would say, she'd put her arm around my dad and say, this is my husband Fred. He's the youngest of four and a half dozen children. And the waitress would be like, four and a half dozen? Yeah, four girls and a half dozen boys. So it's kind of an old family joke. Now I have 10 grandchildren and it's three boys and seven girls. So I thought, oh, I missed it. And then I realized, wait a minute, four of them live in Virginia. and four of them live in West Virginia. So we went back to the same spot. A remarkable thing about this picture, this is just kind of for me, personal. So this is Aaron in the red coat, six years old, 31 years ago, so 1991. Here's Aaron 28 years later. He's holding a two-year-old son, but this is his six-year-old son, Ezra, our oldest grandson. So between this time 28 years difference here's two boys side-by-side six years old father and son and I think that's pretty cool and I get to share that because We're great Commission families. Okay. Here's here's the topic for tonight freedom in Christ freedom in America Galatians chapter 5 and I'm gonna look at these are the selected verses if you want you don't need to write these down or anything like that in fact In college, my favorite class was any class where the professor said, don't worry about taking notes, I have a handout. And I wish that was today, I don't have a handout. But an even better class is when the professor said, don't take notes, just listen. I want you to just listen. And so that's kind of what church is for. We listen to the one in front to hear what God has to say to you and me in our heart. And that's my prayer as we've been praying earlier. So you see three sets, verse one, 13 to 15, so one, two, three, a four-point outline. So I'm going beyond what the typical preacher's supposed to do, three-point outline. We're gonna do a four-point outline. And here's what's gonna, there's a key word and a key verse for each one. A verse is bondage, freedom, love, and provoking. So that's, we're gonna trace right through those as we go along here. And so here's verse one of Galatians chapter five. For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of bondage. Keyword bondage, I've got that underlined. And here's a little phrase I kind of came up with. Without Christ, bondage to sin is our natural state. Now I'm making that personal in a group sense, plural sense. Bondage to sin is our natural state, even as Christians. So think of the world who don't know Christ. Bondage to sin is the natural state of the world. So as you look out to the world, don't expect, well, why do they do that? the world, including you and me, apart from Christ, where our natural state is bondage to sin. Let me put that there and go to the next slide. And I told you with each of these key words and the key verses that go with them, I have a statue in the U.S. Capitol, in or near the U.S. Capitol, actually this first guy is in two places. And actually the third guy is too, well anyway. So this is at the U.S. Capitol. They tell me, I've never seen the, there's a TV program where they zoom in on this and this is Ulysses S. Grant, the Union, victorious Union General for the North after the Civil War. So after the Civil War there were quite a few, a large handful of equestrian statues of Union Generals and his is by far the biggest and in the most prominent location. Interestingly enough, he also has a statue inside, in the Capitol itself, in the main room, if you will, the room of ceremony, there's also a statue of him. You can't quite pick it out here, so I'm going to zoom in a little closer. So there's Ulysses S. Grant right there, and it was a gift statue from the the veteran officers, union officers of the Civil War. Now they gifted that statues. Every state has two statues, so that's 50 states times two is 100 statues, plus others that were gifted for various reasons. So that means there's a lot of statues in the Capitol. And I have spiritual stories about most of them. Over the years, decades, I've been doing this. I meet people from this state, that state, the other state. And so I look up, well, who's the statue from their state? Who's the statue from that state? I read about it a little bit, and then I come to the conclusion, you know, there's a spiritual lesson in that. And we don't have time for all the lessons. We're just going to do a few of them. And so here's Ulysses S. Grant a little closer. And here's the Actually, I wanted, before, yeah, yeah, Ulysses S. Grant. Here's a, I've written a guidebook on the Capitol. It's not published or anything, it's just my stuff I put together and I'm always printing things up. And for Ulysses S. Grant, a few things I say about him. He was the 18th president, so that's two presidents after Abraham Lincoln. Don't worry, there's not going to be a quiz on this. I'm just kind of giving you a sense of, you know, how you might fit things in your head. When was that? Who was that? He was the general during the Civil War. and two presidents after Abraham Lincoln. When he was president, another former Union General wrote a book. In fact, this former Union General became famous here in Frederick, Maryland. He was the general leading the Union side at the Battle of Monocacy, right here outside of the outskirts of Frederick City, here in Frederick County. And that man was General Lew Wallace. After the war, a number of years after the war, he was on a train ride with a man who was traveling the country, a former officer of his, and the man was traveling the country preaching atheism. And so he was trying to convince Lew Wallace, yeah, you shouldn't believe in God, God doesn't exist. And Lew Wallace was like, I don't know, well, okay, I guess you're right. And so before they parted, this other man said to Lew Wallace, again, the man who became famous here because of what he did in Frederick, Maryland. Lew Wallace decided, you know what, I'm going to, he was challenged and Lew Wallace took up the challenge. I'm going to do research and I'm going to write a book to disprove Christianity. He did research and instead he became a Christian. And then he wrote a book and he decided he would write a novel that would engage people in the culture to learn about Jesus. And that novel was the number one best-selling book in America, after the Bible, in his century. And that book was Ben-Hur, A Tale of the Christ. It was such a a cultural stir that for about a decade, everybody talked about it. The subtitle is A Tale of the Christ, and it's a message, it's a novel about forgiveness that Lou Wallace wrote. Well, when Ulysses S. Grant got his copy of Ben-Hur, he was president of the United States at the time, he was so enthralled that he pulled an all-nighter. That's kind of an old college term. Pulled an all-nighter, he stayed up all night, he could not put the book down. He read the book through the night and into the next day, could not put it down. Ulysses S. Grant, it's kind of funny, he's famous for a speech. I love these little tidbits from history. This isn't the spiritual part, but we'll get to that, don't worry. But he had a famous speech called the perfect speech. It goes like this. I rise only to say that I do not intend to say anything. I thank you for your hearty welcomes and good cheers. And then he sat down. But this was his toast, his famous toast, which does come to the verse we want to talk about. God gave us liberty and Lincoln. Let us fight for both. And so that's when I think of that verse. Stand firm therefore, Galatians 5.1, stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. So our natural state is sin, so in Christ we can be unbound from sin. That's kind of the first point in thinking about bondage. Now the second point, thinking about this verse, verse 13, so skipping ahead a bit there if you will. For you are called to freedom brothers, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. And the key word there is freedom, freedom, freedom. Freedom and liberty will be interchangeable in different translations. And years ago, I did kind of a Bible word search in multiple translations. Why does some say liberty? Why does some say freedom? And it's really only a semantical difference. There's some slight difference. But liberty, it's kind of like when a ship comes into port and the sailors are given like three days shore liberty. Liberty sometimes is defined with parameters. Freedom ends with dom, as in domain or kingdom. the domain of the king. So freedom is like entire liberty. So it's liberty to the max. So liberty and they just used a little bit differently. But I like this word freedom. So the key word bondage and now freedom. And I want to think about a particular statue in Washington, DC. The most famous statue in New York City would be the Statue of Liberty, but in Washington, D.C., on the tippy-top of the U.S. Capitol Dome, let's zoom in a little closer, or at least circle it right for now, is the Statue of Freedom. So in New York Harbor, they have the Statue of Liberty on top of the U.S. Capitol. We have the Statue of Freedom, and there it is. Off in the distance, you can see the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. Due north from the Washington Monument is the White House. Due south from the Washington Monument is the Jefferson Memorial. And if you connect those five points, Capitol, Washington Monument, Lincoln, and then going due north and south, White House and the Jefferson Memorial, that forms a perfect cross. And it's in the Congressional Record in 1901. They added the Lincoln Memorial to the mall and then later they had the Jefferson Memorial and they said in the Congressional Record with the addition of these two prominent monuments, the National Mall will be in the form of a Latin cross. It's in the Congressional Record, so it's not, you know, some Christian guy says it, it's in the Congressional Record. But I'm going to focus on the Statue of Freedom. So here it is a little closer. It's an allegorical figure that has, it's kind of a quirky story, I think I'll tell it. Yeah, okay. In the 1850s, they were expanding the Capitol. They were gonna put new rooms for the Senate and the House to meet. And they knew, well, we should have a bigger dome to balance out the kind of the widening of the Capitol. It should also go up. And so they were gonna put a new dome and a new statue on top. And there was a senator from the South who was in charge of some of the artwork. And so he was in charge of the committee for the artwork. And so they hired a guy named Thomas Crawford to design, and we bring a small scale model of the statue that would ultimately go on the top when it was full scale. And the first statue that the guy brought, the statue had a liberty cap on, which goes back to Roman times. Slaves who were set free, and slave was not a racial thing, it mostly was an economic and debt thing. But that senator from the South, I don't think I'm going to use his name, that senator from the South said, we were never slaves, and he could have said, and I own a few, it was an awkward, you know, 1850s, so he said, take it back, I don't like that one, to Thomas Crawford. Well, Thomas Crawford thought, well, I like it, you know, you know how artists are. I like it. And so Thomas Crawford thought, I'm going to make something else so ugly that he's going to want to go back to the first one, which I like. And so he made one. And this is kind of hard to tell from your distance, but it looks like kind of like a dead chicken with his claws hanging over to the side. And the head of the chicken has flat feathers coming straight out of the head. There is no bird on earth like this. It is just kind of goofy looking. But, and so the artist thought, Thomas Crawford thought, well, I'll show that to the senator and he'll say, oh, that's ugly, make the one you did before. Instead, he showed it to the senator and the senator said, okay, that's good, make that. And that's what we have on top of the Capitol, this allegorical figure of the Statue of Freedom. In my Bible in Galatians, or my Bible that I've written in the most for years, below the title, I have this phrase here. The gospel of grace brings true freedom. So that's what the book of Galatians is about. And now I have kind of a rejoinder to go with that. True freedom is not permission to do whatever you want to do, but the ability to do what's right. In the world today, people think freedom is, ah, do whatever you want. You know, that's called, biblically, that's called license. True freedom is the ability to do what's right. In other words, to not be in bondage, which is the natural state of us apart from Christ, but instead have freedom in Christ. Freedom in Christ, and so I'm thinking about freedom in America as well. Let's see if I want to say anything more about that. No, I don't. Going to go on to the third of four points. And so the two verses for this point, the third point, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. That phrase, the whole law is fulfilled in one word, always kind of bugs me that then the next thing isn't one word. But it's kind of a colloquial thing. It's a natural way we speak. Like, have you ever heard someone say about the seven last words of Christ on the cross? That's a great study. If you ever want a sermon series, there's a nice seven-week sermon series. But it's not seven individual words that he spoke. It's the seven times that he said something. And so that's what this means. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word or one expression. It might be another way of saying it for us today. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. You and me. I wrote down here, the ever enlarging boat of liberty is to bless all versus sowing the branch you're sitting on. Okay, those are two phrases I want to explain, two metaphors. The first metaphor, well, I heard them from other people. There's a guy named Bill Federer, he's a wonderful historian, wonderful Christian man. And he uses the metaphor of, think when the pilgrims first came across. They came across for religious liberty. Actually, they came across to continue religious liberty, which they'd had in the Netherlands, which they'd escaped from England like a decade before. But in the Netherlands, they felt they were losing their kids to the world. Their kids were going into, so to speak, bondage, the bondage of sin. And so they thought, we need to go to a place where our children can stand on our shoulders to be as lights to the world. So they had an evangelistic missionary vision. That's why they came to the new world. Pretty interesting stuff. But the idea of the boat of liberty, metaphorically speaking, Bill Federer uses the idea of the boat of liberty, and with my hands I'm making like a small boat. Well, soon after the pilgrims came the Puritans. The Puritans were like the pilgrims, but they believed just a little differently. This happens in the Christian world, well, constantly. But they looked at each other and finally said, okay, boat of liberty, pilgrims and Puritans, you're all on the boat. And then over time they said, okay, anybody is any kind of Christian allowed in the boat of liberty here in the new world. And then they said, okay, anybody who believes in the God of the Bible, which means Jewish people too. And Maryland was the first for that. I don't need to get into it, but it's kind of interesting. Maryland was the only colony that really had religious freedom. for Jewish people as well, especially. But anyway, over time, then we had a civil war. Okay, everybody, skin color does not matter. Everybody's in the boat of liberty. And I know this is going out over the internet, maybe, but I would point out that the boat of liberty, the last people, Christians built the boat of liberty for a specific purpose, to bless anyone, not necessarily people who are Christians. The boat of liberty is for anyone. But it seems in our day and age, that there's some people that are in the boat of liberty here in America, and they look around, And Anthony, I'll pick you. They look around and they see a Christian. And they look at him and they say, what are you doing in the boat? We don't like you narrow-minded Christians in the boat. Get out of the boat! Remember who built the boat of liberty? The Christians, who wanted to bless everyone. But now the Christians are being the one pointed at, get out of the boat. So that's one thought. The second thought is, and you've probably heard this before, sawing the branch you are sitting on. Have you ever heard that example? Picture somebody sitting on a branch, and he's got a saw in his hand, and he's sawing the branch. There's a big question that needs to be asked and answered right now for that man. Which side of him is the tree trunk from where he's sawing. If the tree trunk is on his right, he's good. He's just lopping off some of the branch. But if the tree trunk is on his left, and he's sawing with his left arm, he is sawing the branch he is sitting on. And when he's done sawing, it falls to the ground. So freedom in Christ and freedom in America is based on freedom in Christ. And so as much as everybody in America doesn't need to be Christian, but the boat has been built to be a blessing to all. And so let me show you some people who I think you could say, wait a minute, Yep, yeah, I do want to go on. I'm going to show some more about another guy. So now the third, I like that turn of the phrase, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So Christians, we are building a boat of liberty to be a blessing to all. It is never Christian's intentions. to build bondage for the world, and you've got to do things our way, is we want the best for others. If I ever ran for office, and I won't because I have a higher calling, if I ever ran for office, you know, it's almost ubiquitous in American political discourse, at the end of a speech, someone says, and God bless America. You know, they always say that at the end. I would say, God bless America, and God bless the whole world. And if I was asked to explain that, it says, well, God only blesses America to bless the whole world. If God's not blessed in America, it's because we're not seeking God's blessing so we can bless others. Blessing is never something for ourselves. It's something God gives us to be able to give to others, blessing. OK. The third key verse, it's one sentence, but it's two verses, Galatians 5, 22, 23. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, Faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. So three words so far. Keywords bondage, freedom, and now love. And I'm gonna expand on this. Let me see how much I want to... yeah, yeah. The third statue I want to talk about is this guy, James Garfield. Like Ulysses S. Grant, he has a statue out in front of the Capitol and inside the Capitol. We'll get to that in a moment. Well, actually, here it is. Now, you might recognize the guy alive, but here's the statue of James Garfield. We've had four presidents assassinated. Most people can name Lincoln and Kennedy. The other two are McKinley and Garfield. James Garfield is the only minister to later be elected President of the United States. So there's hope for me. But I have no plans. And then this is Billy Graham in 1996 receiving the Congressional Gold Medal. The lady in red over here is Ruth Graham. The white hair is Newt Gingrich. There's the Vice President of the United States, Al Gore. There's Bob and Elizabeth Dole. And on down the line, Strom Thurmond. All the leaders there because they have gathered to honor Billy Graham inside the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. And this was from Decision Magazine, which the Billy Graham's ministry puts out. And I don't know if they did this on purpose, but they framed Billy Graham, the preacher, with a preacher on the right, statue of a preacher on the right, James Garfield, who I'm gonna talk about more. And I'll just mention, the one in the background right behind him is also a preacher. And there's a lot of preachers in these statues, so this is not a totally random thing. This is Roger Williams, the Baptist founder of Rhode Island. So here he is, Baptist preacher, Baptist preacher. Oh yeah, there's James. So that one's James Garfield in the upper right. Here he is a little closer to kind of see James Garfield, because my focus is gonna be on him. You know what? Let me tell you about Billy Graham, actually. Let me share with you part of this speech of this man in this setting. This is pretty remarkable. So he's got kind of the gathered leaders of our nation, and so it's an event where they're honoring him, but he got the gospel in. Here's how he did it. I'm gonna read this verbatim. You can watch this on C-SPAN, which I have, and I've transcribed it. And Billy Graham said, in a 15-minute speech, one part of it, he says, from time to time, I've wandered through this building and looked at all those statues. I stood in front of some of them, whose biography I knew a bit about, and although I thought to myself, there's one thing they all have, but I thought to myself, there's one thing they all have in common, They're all dead. Secretary Brown has joined them. And you will too someday. Are you ready for that day? And so Billy Graham, even in this setting, was pointing to people, think about eternity. Think about eternity. There is a policy that any statue that any state puts forward, it has to be someone who's no longer living. And anybody from North Carolina? Anybody ever heard of North Carolina? Okay, they have two statues. Yeah, I'm sorry. That's silly. They have two statues already. And one of them is a governor I don't need to name his name from over 100 years ago. He built a lot of schools in North Carolina, but he tended to only build them for one type of people. So this is like a little bit of embarrassment for North Carolina to have that particular statue. So for years they've been thinking, all right, we gotta go to somebody else. And they actually had a competition. I think Michael Jordan was in the running, but then someone realized, hey, wait a minute, he's still alive. But guess who won the competition? Billy Graham. So Billy Graham, before he passed away, it was several years before he passed away, it's been I think two and a half years since he passed away, but like five or eight years ago, it was announced, Billy Graham will be the next statue, he was in his late 90s by that time, Billy Graham will be the next statue to replace this other guy for North Carolina. And you can imagine that his son, Franklin Graham, had to come to him at some point, Daddy, it's all worked up, the plans are in late, there's only one more thing that needs to happen. You need to die. Now, I don't know that they had that conversation, but he has now died and the statue is planned. And this is kind of the pose. If you ever saw Billy Graham preach, he had his Bible, you know, big old King James Bible that kind of flopped over his hand and he's holding, he's got like this. He is preaching. So I can't wait for that statue to get to the U.S. Capitol because, boy, that's going to be an easy one to transition to the gospel when I stand in front of it. Not that any of them are, Okay, so back to back to this guy James Garfield as a young man He was a preacher then he went into politics So he's not like a preacher who got elected president just to point that out to you, but I do want to say Well, yeah, here's here's a couple of quotes. I like quotes from people. What did they say for themselves? James Garfield men are tending to materialism houses lands worldly goods attract their attention and as a as a mirage to lure them on to death so stuff leads to death bondage, this earth. Instead, our eyes should be lifted up. I'm continuing now to read what he wrote. Christianity, on the other hand, leads only the natural body to death, and for the spirit, it points out a house not built with hands, eternal in the heavens. Let me urge you to follow him, not as the Nazarene, the man of Galilee, as the carpenter's son, but as the ever-living, spiritual person, full of love and compassion, who will stand by you in life and death and eternity. He was in Congress for like 10 terms or something like that. And then almost in a fluke, other guys thought they'd be president. It was so close. The different political parties said, what about this guy? And so James Garfield suddenly got elected president, almost like a surprise. And then he was assassinated almost right after that as the 20th president. So that was two after Ulysses S. Grant, who was two after Abraham Lincoln, if you're counting at home. But here's something I want you to think about. He talked about Jesus Christ being full of love, and the verses I'm talking about right now is, the fruit of the Spirit is love. We were talking earlier, there's no punctuation in the original, but I think what if the punctuation was like this, the fruit of the Spirit is love, colon, And now he's going to give multiple facets of love. I put a lot on the board up here and I'm not going to, well yeah, I'm going to walk through it quickly. I think the fruit of the Spirit is love. Period. But there's different ways that love works itself out. For instance, this is my little take. Love plus emotion, well that's joy. Remember love, joy, peace? Love plus confidence, having a sense of God's in charge. That's what can give you peace. Love plus confidence is peace. And then the next three, love plus time, that's patience. Love plus action. Love in action is kindness. You can see love when there is action. And you think, that's a kind person. And then the next one, love plus character is goodness. And the last three, love plus commitment, faithfulness, love plus sensitivity, gentleness. I have this memory of Walter Cronkite in the 70s having a TV program about the 21st century, about things that will be happening in the future. And one was robots. And I remember them trying to teach a robot to do a simple thing. pick up an egg, carry it over somewhere and put it down. The problem they were having, a robot doesn't have what we have on our fingertips. Many, many highly detailed sensors. So we can gently pick up the egg gently and move it over here and put it down. A robot picks it up and either crushes it, in the old days anyway, or drops it part way. So sensitivity, love plus sensitivity, that's what gentleness is. So we don't break the eggs emotionally of people around us. That's true love. And then the last one, love plus discipline is self-control. By the way, so this is it, love, then love, joy, peace, that's three one-syllable words. This works in the NAS, doesn't work everywhere. Love, joy, peace, three one-syllable words. Patience, kindness, goodness, three two-syllable words. And then faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, three three-syllable words. I just like seeing those things in the Bible. It's just for me. I mean, you know, it's like a way to remember stuff. All right, I got a picture here. These are eight of my ten grandchildren. At the time, the ninth one was in a stroller and the tenth one wasn't born yet. But for my 60th birthday, I asked my children who are married to deal with the rigmarole of getting all of our grandchildren and go to the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. And I had them line up because this child, the oldest, is holding a $100 bill. Behind her in the painting is Ben Franklin. That's the face on the $100 bill. She's holding, second oldest grandchild, is holding a $50 bill. And there's Ulysses S. Grant. right over there, his statue. The next one's holding a $20 bill, and I took the picture, and behind me is a statue of Andrew Jackson, $20 bill. And the next one's holding a $10 bill, Alexander Hamilton. There's Alexander Hamilton. And on down the line, you get the picture. And I call it the faces of money in the Capitol Rotunda. So the fact that All the faces of money are there. I've shared with multiple people. But that's in the center of Congress. And now I want to end Garfield with another quote. I love these kinds of quotes. In 1876, he wasn't president yet. I don't think. I think he was still in Congress. And so he made a comment about Congress and the American people. Remember the theme? Freedom in Christ, freedom in America. James Garfield, July 4th, 1876. Now, more than ever before, ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature. In other words, we get the Congress we deserve, and that's kind of a scary thing sometimes. All right, on to the fourth and final point. and with the last three verses of the passage of Galatians 5, and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, ending one another. Strikingly, my last key word is this word here, provoking. Now that's usually not like a pleasant word, provoking. It's like two little boys, brothers, I think Abraham Lincoln, he had two sons. He was walking along the streets of Springfield, Illinois when he was a young, fairly young lawyer one day, and his two boys were fussing and fighting with one another. And someone across the way said, Mr. Lincoln, what's the problem? And he said, the same problem is with the whole world. I got two boys and I gave them one walnut. Now there's a three letter word with I in the middle, sin. There's a five letter word with I in the middle, pride. The I in the middle is the problem. I shared that with my kids once, and Daniel's sister, Sarah, said to me, well, dad, smile is a five letter word with I in the middle. OK, it doesn't always work. But this idea of provoking, usually we think of it in terms of like two brothers poking each other and provoking one another. But here in this passage, it's using the exact opposite, provoking one another. Oh, I'm sorry, not in this passage, but here's a passage. All those who belong to Christ... Oh, wait a minute. Did I not put that verse in there? Let us consider how to stir one another to love and good deeds. Where is that? Oh, yeah. That's not verse 15. Philippians 3.20, but our citizenship is in heaven. And so we are to consider how to stir one another to love and good deeds. That's the kind of provoking we want to have. But here's two verses I want you to think about. So from this phrase, and those who belong to Christ Jesus, That's in the passage we just read, the last of the four parts of Galatians. But what I want to add to that is Galatians 3.20, but our citizenship is in heaven. As I shared with the group earlier, you know, freedom in Christ, freedom in America. Okay, is America like this godly nation that God's going to bless forever? I don't think so. There's no nation like that because our citizenship is in heaven. Now our stewardship, every person on earth is born somewhere, born into some setting, some culture, some language, some nation. And so that becomes that person's stewardship. And we have our stewardship of what are we going to do with what God's given us for the purpose of being able to bless others. So now I want to bring up the last guy of the statues. So we've had so far Ulysses S. Grant, a real person. The Statue of Freedom, a metaphorical person. James Garfield. And now I'm going to show you, this is The most photographed man in America in the 19th century, that'd be the 1800s, not Abraham Lincoln, because he was only president for a little over four years, but a man who lived a long time and got a lot of, people took a lot of pictures of him, because it was a big deal. And there's pictures in here, it's kind of hard to see, so let's zoom in. He has a statue in the U.S. Capitol. That tapestry was in the Museum of the Bible where Daniel and I spent the day. This man is Frederick Douglass, a wonderful Christian man. If you read some of his writings, in fact, I have thousands of books, and I have more books on Frederick Douglass than any other single person with the notable exception of Jesus. You know, that's probably, you know, it's not fair. It's not a fair comparison. But I want to look at, yeah this is the phrase I was thinking of, let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds. That's the provoking that we're to be involved in. So key word is provoke. And so now I want to have You know what, I want to go back to the Douglass statue because I want to read some of the things that he said. When I stand in front of this statue in the U.S. Capitol building, this is the quote I have from him, Frederick Douglass. I have one great political idea. The best expression of it I found in the Bible. It is in substance, righteousness exalted the nation. Sin is a reproach to any people. This constitutes my politics, the negative and positive of my politics, and the whole of my politics. I feel it my duty to do all in my power to infuse this idea into the public mind that it may speedily be recognized and practiced upon by our people. You know, a couple of years ago, there was a host of people, I'm thinking of how many quotes I want to do for Frederick Douglass, I think I want to, Yeah, this is his testimony. I was thinking of skipping past the testimony. I thought, wait a minute, you can't do that in a sermon. Amazing man. He was born a slave, never saw his mother in the light of day. His father, honestly, was probably the slave owner. It's a difficult and awkward history. We're talking, I forget the birth year, we're talking 1820s, 1830s, something like that, a couple of decades before the Civil War, several decades before the Civil War. And he escaped, gained his freedom, got married, and became a speaker, like in his 20s and into his 30s, and well, the rest of his life. But by the time, I think it was in his early 30s, he wrote an autobiography. And then a couple more decades go by, and he did a lot of stuff, did a lot of speaking, very active, obviously, in the abolitionist movement, went to Europe, you know, well-traveled, well-spoken man. So he wrote a second autobiography. And then towards the end of his life, he wrote a third autobiography that was actually longer than the first two. and kind of recovered and expanded on a number of things. In all my readings of people throughout world history, I have never heard of anybody that had enough life going on that they wrote, in their lifetime, three autobiographies. This man had a lot going on, Frederick Douglass. So let me read this. I think I'm going to do two somewhat long quotes, but to kind of give him the respect of his spiritual birth and his vision for America. All right, you ready? When I was about 13 years old and had succeeded in learning to read, he was a brilliant guy. He'd be sent to the store to pick up stuff. He'd be given a list of go get these things. He was just to give it to the grocer, because he was not allowed to be learning how to read and write. So he would point to something on the list and then go see what they brought. And then he knew, ah, that's apples. And then, you know, point to the next thing and see what they got. Ah, that, you know, brilliant guy. He would find scraps of paper in the gutter, and he'd show it to some of the white boys, and he didn't know what it said, so he would make up something. Ah, this talks about as if he knew, he'd pretend. This says, da-da-da-da-da, and they would tease him, that's not what it says, let's tell you what it says. This guy was brilliant, and he taught himself to read, he significantly taught himself to read and write. So, I'll try to start again. When I was about 13 years old and had succeeded in learning to read, I want you to understand the impact of that phrase, succeeded in learning to read, every increase of knowledge, especially anything respecting the free states, was an additional weight to the almost intolerable burden of the thought I had that I am a slave for life. To my bondage I could see no end. It was a terrible reality, and I shall never be able to tell how sadly that thought chafed my young spirit. And then I was not more than thirteen years old when my loneliness and destitution I longed for someone to whom I should go as to a father and protector. The preaching of a white Methodist minister named Hanson was the means of causing me to feel that in God I had such a friend. He thought, this preacher, thought that all men, great and small, bonded free, were sinners in the sight of God, that they were by nature rebels against his government, God's government, and that they must repent of their sins and be reconciled to God through Christ. I cannot say that I had a very distinct notion of what was required of me, but one thing I did know well, I was wretched and I had no means of making myself otherwise. I consulted a good old colored man named Charles Lawson, and in the tones of holy affection, he told me to pray and to cast all my cares upon God. This I sought to do, and though for weeks I was a poor, broken-hearted mourner, traveling with doubts and fears, I finally found my burden lightened, my heart relieved. I loved all mankind, slaveholders not accepted, though I abhorred slavery more than ever. I saw the world in a new light, and my great concern was to have everybody converted. My desire to learn increased, and especially that I want thorough acquaintance with the contents of the Bible." There's lots more on him, and I just better move along. Except, I want to tell you that two and a half years ago, there was a speech of his that was quoted a lot, except it was misquoted. And I was really kind of, why did people get away with that? Because in 1852, for the 4th of July, he was asked to give a speech, which they actually celebrated. This 4th of July was a Sunday. On Monday, the 5th of July. And the title of the speech that he was assigned to speak on, to a women's suffrage group in upstate New York. So it was women who wanted the right to vote, and they invited him to be the speaker. already famous guy, famous speaker, and the topic was, what does the Negro, the Fourth of July and the Negro. And so he gave a speech, and so quite a long speech, it's about, it prints out for me 19 pages, and what I have here is the last page. or an excerpt from the last page. Because for about, well he starts on a positive note and then he does something that really good speakers do to get a crowd motivated. He says some really negative things. He says, gets people riled up. And that part was quoted heavily in 2020, the summer of 2020. But that wasn't his point. His point was to lead to action by presenting the conclusion of what the solution is. So this is how that speech ended. And allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, and he did it pretty powerfully, by the way, so when I just say the dark picture, if you read it all, you'd go, whoa, man, that guy's good. But the dark picture that I have presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. We're talking 1852, almost a decade before the Civil War. And then he quotes the Bible. The arm of the Lord is not shortened. That's Isaiah 59, one. and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American institutions, my spirit is cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age." In other words, he believed that the foundation documents of America, the Declaration of Independence, and in an earlier paragraph he did the same kind of thing, talking through the Constitution, He believed those documents would make it inevitable that slavery would be abolished in our nation. He was better than a prophet He was a Christian that could see where God was taking a nation and I'm pretty impressed with that. All right So now I'm gonna kind of come to a conclusion What now what now This is a post-it, or from a post-it I have on my desk for years and years and years. It was some years ago, I don't even remember the particulars. I could think, if I thought about it a little bit, I could. But it doesn't matter, that's kind of the point of it. But I was kind of looking at the world saying, why don't those people do this? Why don't those people do that? About people in leadership and national things or international things, whatever. And then it was as if God said to me, why are you pointing the fingers at others? It's kind of like at the Last Supper, remember Jesus? Someone said, hey, what about Him? Meaning, is he gonna live to be an old man? Was kind of the question that one of the disciples was asking. And Jesus said, basically paraphrase it, don't you worry about that, you worry about you. So I think God kind of said that to me when I was kind of looking. I can be a newsaholic at sometimes and I realize it's wasting too much time trying to understand and know everything about everything. And why didn't this person do this, that person do that. It's like God said to me, what about you? You need to do the one thing, or the one thing, whatever I've called you to. So what now? What do you do in a world that's not perfect? And you're never going to get any other world until we're at the banquet table. You know what? I'm going to do a small aside there. From time to time when I spend time with people that are Christians and then we're not, we're partying, we're probably not going to see each other again because it was kind of like a you know, some event where we were together and then you're going to your state, I'm going to my state. I used to do, well, I still do, what we used to say, what we said back in the 70s, we'll see you again, here, there, or in the air. That was kind of my little thing. Well, just this week, a guy said to me, and it just came to mind when looking at this, a guy looked at me and said, see you at the banquet table. I thought, whoa, that is cool. See you at the banquet table. That's what I'm looking forward to. So this thing of two things to do as you look at anything in your world. Remember your calling. What has God called you to do? Be faithful to what God has called you to do. And while you're doing that, number two, keep looking up. Because you're going to see, I want to see you, I'm looking forward to seeing you at the banquet table. So that's the conclusion. Except I've got to share this quote. This is on the Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. It's a Bible verse. Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set. That's a beautiful thought. Right next to it is a quote from, you know what? There you go. I'll stand in the light. Walk in the light. Man, that's bright. That's a quote from George Washington at the beginning of the Constitutional Convention. They carved it, or they put it in copper plate anyway, over top of the door at the entrance to Constitution Hall in D.C. I've known these quotes for years, and only recently did I realize he's quoting the Bible. Twice! I mean, he's using a pull phrase. He's not like quoting a verse in its full verbatim. He's using phrases and concepts from the Bible. At the beginning of the Constitutional Convention, George Washington, let us raise a standard to which the honest and wise can repair. So in Jeremiah 17, he talks about raising a standard. Second sentence, much shorter, the event is in the hand of God. And a few years ago at church, we were going through the book of Ecclesiastes. Remember that, Daniel? We got to chapter nine and verse one. It's kind of a long verse, but in the middle of the verse, or actually towards the end of the verse, it has this thing about events being in the hand of God. Events in the hand of God, that's what George Washington said. So if I, a person who knows the Bible pretty well, above average I think, and I enjoy history, and I didn't know that George Washington was quoting the Bible. Think of how a secular historian is going to be who doesn't know the Bible and they're reading things from history. They're going to have what, and I mean this in a polite way, they're going to have historical ignorance. They just don't know. It's not even necessarily deliberate ignorance, though Romans chapter one does talk about that. But those are the four things Bondage freedom love and provoking as in provoking one another to love and good deeds Galatians chapter 5 now For years. Well when Daniel was a little boy my Daniel sitting right here We homeschooled we as in it's like the the two guys that went bear hunting and one of them shot a bear, and they got back to camp, and the other guy said, we killed a bear. Well, no, it was the other guy. So we homeschooled, as in my wife homeschooled, and I supported her. And early on, one of the assignments Daniel had was to memorize some poetry. Was it Robert Louis Stevenson? Yeah, something from Robert Louis Stevenson. It was just on his to-do list for the coming week. Well, he came back like an hour or so, or later that day, and recited it for Linda. And Linda's like, wow, that's pretty amazing. We should give him some Bible assignments. One thing led to another. Daniel has memorized a couple of dozen chapters of the Bible, the whole chapters, and one of them happens to be Galatians chapter 5. Let me get my copy right here. And so, to conclude, and then I will close at least this part of what I'm doing, what we're doing in prayer, I want you to just sit and listen. You're free to follow along in your copy of God's Word, but let God's Word wash over you. So Daniel's going to recite Galatians chapter 5, and we just did about, I don't know, eight or so verses from Galatians chapter 5. Let me just put a blank screen up there. Just let God's Word wash over you as you hear Daniel recite. It's a little bit different to hear someone recite God's Word from memory than to hear someone read. I mean, it's obviously very good to sit in the reading of Scripture, but to sit in the hearing of Scripture, to hear someone recite. So Daniel, where do you want to do that? You want to just stand right there and recite? I think that'll be fine. And I'll just be over here listening as well. shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you. Whosoever of you are justified by the law, he are fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love. You did run well. Who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you a little leaven levitant, the whole lump. I have confidence in you that you will be none otherwise minded, but he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be. And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross ceased. I would then they were cut off, which trouble you, For brethren, you have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed. one of another. This I say then, walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary the one to the other, so that she cannot do the things that she would. But if you be led of the spirit, you are not under a law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envies, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like, of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. And they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. amen amen thank you daniel let me close this part in prayer and then we'll have a discussion of ministry outing opportunities that sound good all right lord god thank you for your word the power of your word spoken read your holy spirit brings life to us by your word and i pray that as we step forward from this evening this church gathering that as we go into the different parts of the world you call us to, that in each case, each of us, myself, each of us here, would remember the calling you've given to us to walk with you, faith with you, and yet, as we live in this fallen world, we would be looking up, looking forward to that banquet that's in the future, being prepared by the Lord Jesus himself. So Lord, thank you for this time together to gather, to sing, to worship, to pray, to be in your word, and to be in your word in the context of the world we live in. thank you for the the privileges that come to us by being born in America and and yet we want to be people who are Living out faithfully because no nation is perfect and never will be But we want to live faithfully here on earth as we look forward to the completion of our citizenship in heaven Someday and this we pray in Jesus name. Amen Amen I'm gonna close this and come around and sit over there because I have handouts Yes, do some baby shifting. So, I think it's a good transition point, actually, to wrap up the video. I think so. That's kind of a piece, a sermon. I gotta say, what a blessing. I don't know if people really took note, but we actually, as a church, were blessed by three full chapters of the Bible in different contexts. the entirety of Daniel chapter seven. And then our time of prayer, folks, I'm praying through the entirety of Psalm five. And now we just have the recitation of Galatians chapter five. So which puts the rest of us to shame. I can't say that I've got any chapter fully memorized that I could recite from memory. So what a blessing, and hopefully every little blessing of that. Anyway, thank you for watching us, whether live or later on. I should probably allow you, you have a website. Yes, GCfamilies.org. G for great, C for commission, and families. GCfamilies.org. Or just Google Bernie Beal. Well, there might be more than one Bernie Beal, but if you do that, it's Beal is Beall. B-E-A-L-L. That's right. Beall, things to all men, so there's something I should say. Pronounce Beal. So again, so one more time, the website. www.gcfamilies.com dot o r g g c families plural dot o r g not dot com so you can uh... learn more about what bernie has going on a can hook up with him for one of his tours in his uh... uh... ministry outings he does the all throughout the the region the maryland and southern p a uh... into virginia i guess uh... stuff as well west virginia so anyway thanks so much for watching will find you uh... your same time same bat channel next week