Now our sermon title this morning is Good Stewards of God's Grace. Good Stewards of God's Grace. That's what we want to be, amen. Good Stewards of the manifold, the glorious, the matchless Grace of God. Our text is 2 Corinthians 6 verses 1 through 10. As we consider our text this morning, it's no mystery that by the time Paul writes this letter, 2 Corinthians, he is heartbroken over the spiritual state of the church at Corinth. So much had happened in the relatively short time since the church had been planted. Record of those first 18 months of this fledgling church is recorded in Acts chapter 18, where Paul filled with his spirit, preached the gospel with Priscilla and Aquila in verse 2. Timothy and Silas were there with him, ministering to those in Corinth in verse 5. And by the grace of God in verse 8, many of the Corinthians, the text says, hearing, they believed and were baptized. Praise God. And the Lord reassured Paul in verse 9 through a vision, he said to Paul, don't be afraid Paul but speak. Do not keep silent for I am with you and no one will attack you to hurt you for I have many people in this city. Paul was accustomed to persecution, Paul was accustomed to being attacked, Paul was accustomed to harm, Paul was accustomed to the persecution that comes from this lost world that God reassures and I have many people in this city, the grace of God was being poured out and sinners in Corinth were coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. As we consider those circumstances, as we consider whatever honeymoon period may have been enjoyed during that first 18 months, that honeymoon period was short lived to say the least. Paul was then laboring in Ephesus when reports began filtering back to Paul regarding significant trouble in the church at Corinth. There were divisions among the people, squabbles, there was gross sexual immorality that had been reported. There was no immorality of such a nature that was not even common among the Gentiles. There are abuses regarding spiritual gifts, there's false teaching, there's false teaching regarding the resurrection, there's sin in their administration of the Lord's Supper and so-called false converts, so-called professing Christians, false professing Christians in the church are living in open sin and the church at Corinth has done little or nothing to deal with the problems that are in their midst. As you can imagine, that kind of sin, that kind of chaos in the camp, that kind of obvious vacuum of leadership, that obvious lack of accountability provides ample opportunity for wolves to creep in among the sheep. The false teachers come in and they begin drawing away disciples after themselves. And mind you, as a false teacher comes in beginning to preach false doctrine, people are led away after their false doctrines, away from Christ, away from the simplicity that is in Christ and after error to their damnation. They do so these false teachers, they do so in large part by undermining and accusing the apostle Paul, undermining his message, undermining his ministry, undermining his practice, undermining him personally in the hearts and minds of the Corinthians. There are many in Corinth who are persuaded by their lies. They fall away after their deceit. The get-still point between 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians where one of their own members actually opposes Paul to his face and the church not only allows it to happen, they do nothing to correct it. They just sit back and let this run rampant in the church, this insurrection, this revolt that is taking place, this mutiny. And so Paul, rather than making another painful visit, rather than risking maybe what could be a full alienation of the church from him from the gospel, Paul decides to write a letter of rebuke instead and that letter has come to be known as the severe letter. So now as Paul sits somewhere in Macedonia, Titus having come to him, as he sits and writes this letter, 2 Corinthians, it's four or five years after the church was planted, AD 54, AD 55, he's just received the good news from Titus that the church has responded to his rebuke and they responded well, they responded with repentance and they've begun to address the revolt that has risen up against him. Now Paul says in this letter, now it's time through this letter to address the accusations against him by his opponents. Paul enters into reluctantly a defense of his ministry for the sake of the Corinthians, for the sake of this embattled church, for their soul's sake, not for Paul's reputation's sake, not for his own namesake, but for their sake, he's pressed to defend his ministry and plead with them, plead with them to get back on track, back to contending for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Back to dealing faithfully with sin, back to rejecting the accusations of these wolves that have gained a foothold in the church there, and back to clinging to the message and to the ministry of the Lord's apostle, the apostle Paul, but consider the heart and mind of Paul as he wrote, what was in Paul's heart, what was in Paul's mind as he was pleading with the Corinthians to turn from your sin? Don't receive the grace of God in vain. Look at chapter 5 verse 12. Paul says, we're not here commending ourselves to you again, as if you don't already know us. Paul says in verse 12, you know me, right? You know my ministry to you is from God. I'm defending my ministry to help you stand against these false accusations. We have to be equipped, right? In order to fend off false teaching, you must be equipped with the word of truth. If you won't stand for the word of truth, you will fall for anything, right? We must be equipped with the word of truth to stand against error, to stand against false teaching. Look at chapter 5 verse 13. Paul says, all that we do is for God and for you. Someone says we're out of our mind, or someone says we're of sound mind. All that we do is for the Lord, and it's for your sake, the love of Christ compels us. Look at chapter 5 verse 15. Dear brothers, dear sisters, listen, he died for us that we should no longer live for ourselves, but for him who died for us and rose again. It is our reasonable service of worship, right? Our reasonable offering, our reasonable sacrifice. Why? Because chapter 5 verse 17, we are a new creation in Christ. All things have passed away, behold, all things become new. Chapter 5 verse 18, we who are once sinners, dead in our sins and trespasses, God has reconciled us to himself. He's forgiven us of our sin. He cleansed us of our sin. Where there was once enmity, now there is peace. In chapter 5 verse 19, God is then, now, committed to us, then, the Word of reconciliation. We're to go into the world and preach peace, God's peace, through Christ, to this lost and dying world. And now, chapter 5 verse 20, beloved church, you and I, we are ambassadors for the Lord Jesus Christ. With his word, his message on our hearts, on our tongues, preaching the Word of reconciliation on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. Why? Why is that? What's the basis for it, right? What are the theological underpinnings for why we do what we do? For because, verse 21, he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Man, what glorious grace, right? What an amazing economy of words to express such vast and profound, glorious spiritual truths. Volumes could be written, couldn't they? Volumes have been written. Many more volumes will be written. We've got a glorious volume in our lap, in our hands this morning that's been written. What glorious grace we've been shown. We need to understand, though, you and I, just as those believers in the church at Corinth, you and I need to understand that with that grace comes responsibility. With the gift comes responsibility. Paul recognizes that he is a steward of the grace of God that's been given to him. The Corinthians are to be good stewards of the grace that has been shown to them. You and I are to be good, faithful, delighting, joyful, fervent, earnest, diligent, zealous stewards of the grace of God that has been shown to us in Christ. So in chapter 6, verse 1, understanding these things, understanding the condition that the church in Corinth is in, understanding that Paul has responsible to them not only as an apostle of Jesus Christ, but as an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul has responsibility to them not to just plead with the loss of the world, but to plead with them. Paul turns back and addresses the church directly beginning in verse 1. He's not ultimately concerned with the personal attacks against him. Paul's not concerned here with making much of himself. He's not concerned with building his own resume. He's not concerned with patting his own wallet, with increasing his own fame, with getting enough likes or clicks on Twitter or Facebook or whatever that is, with getting enough for his lear jet for his BMW for a $500 suit, Paul's not concerned with those things. Paul's not concerned with being liked, Paul's not concerned with appeasing them by worldly means. Paul's not concerned with just merely entertaining them or trying to hold them by worldly means. He's not trying to win their support at the expense of the truth.  Paul says, we, Timothy, silence myself, we then as ambassadors for Christ as workers together with God pleading as though God himself were pleading through us, we Corinthians also plead with you. And he pleads with us this morning, don't receive the grace of God in vain. Be good stewards of what God has done for you in Christ. Don't waste this gift. Don't squander the gift of God's grace. Consider the high cost at which it came to you. Don't treat it as a common thing. In other words, Corinthians, it has a Paul saying to them, right? Has it all been for nothing? All the labor, all the tears, all the prayers, all the preaching, all the grace of God, all the fellowship, all the discipling, all that pain and sorrow and grief in the process of discipline, all the care and concerns shown for the church, all the sorrow, all the tears amongst you as you've dealt with sin in the church, as you've dealt with false teachers, all the persecution that you faced coming out of the world. Has it all been for nothing? Would you now, at the whim of some wicked false teacher, abandon the faith and depart from Christ and the grace of God becomes to you a vain, empty, common thing that you then trample underfoot? You said at one time that the Lord Jesus Christ has saved you from your sin, that His blood was shed for you, that He died on Calvary for you, that He paid for your sins, that your sins were there placed upon Him, and He bore the penalty for them on the cross. And now, now would you say that no longer matters to me? And you would leave Christ over, I've got to work more, or I just can't make it anymore. I've got too many other things to do. My family is getting in the way, money is getting in the way, other priorities are getting in the way. Listen, all those things will perish, they will vanish, and you will stand before the God, the judge, the living and the dead, the Lord Jesus Christ that is appearing, you will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account of everything you've done in the body, whether good or bad. Hear Him, love Him, give your heart to Him, for you receive the grace of God in vain. And now, I'm going to tell you a story about David and his mighty men, David, his mighty men have stationed themselves in the cave of Adulam, the Philistines are gathered together below them in the valley, the valley of Ref-Aim, and they're preparing for battle, right? David, as David is accustomed to doing, has asked the Lord, shall I go out against them? And the Lord promises David that I'm going to deliver them into your hands. So they're preparing for battle, they're tired, they're thirsty. David the king makes, what the Bible says is a longing statement. He says, oh, that someone would give me a drink of the water from the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate. You can almost hear him say it under his breath, right? As he sits in the cave, man, I wish he had some of that water. David had grown up around the well at the gate at Bethlehem, and so David, I'm sure many, many times, quenched his thirst from that very well, must have been really good water. David would have often drank from that well, and I'm sure we can relate with David, can't we? You're tired, you're hungry, there's nothing to eat. Been on a keto diet for five months, and you say, what I wouldn't give for a plate of lasagna right now, right? From that place we went to, over there, you know, well, David's men, David's men heard him say it under his breath. He's three mighty men of David, and they loved David. They loved the king. So the three mighty men broke through the garrison of the Philistines, at great risk to their own lives. They broke through the Philistines' stronghold at Bethlehem, and they got that cup of water for David. They brought that water back to him. What did David do? He poured it out on the ground. He poured it out on the ground. Someone might say, considering that, all that effort, that risk they took, right, the price that they paid, the least that David could have done was drink it. Was it all in vain? All that effort? Was it all in vain? Certainly the blood shed. What did David say? David said, far be it from me, oh Lord, that I should do this. Is this not the blood of those men who went in jeopardy of their lives? Rather than drinking that in vain, David poured it out in worship as a drink offering to the Lord his God, poured it out to the one who is worthy of such a sacrifice. We can make the connection, can't we? If then, living water out of the well from Bethlehem was secured at such a great cost to meet our need, at the cost of the blood of God's only begotten Son who died, who triumphed over sin and death for us, how much more should we pour our own selves out as a drink offering to him? It would be unthinkable, considering the sacrifice, considering the value of that cup. It would be unthinkable to do anything less, wouldn't it? Treating the blood of the Covenant as a common thing. Anything less would be receiving the grace of God in vain. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. Sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty sins. Praise the Lord. The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day, and there have I as a vile as he washed all my sins away. Praise the Lord. So what does Paul mean then by the warning? What does Paul mean by the exhortation in verse one? He says in verse one, we then as workers together with him with God. Also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. A couple of initial questions will help us understand what Paul means here in the text. How is it that we receive the grace of God? How does it come to us? How is it that we receive the grace of God? How is it that someone might receive the grace of God then in vain? The answers are found in part through understanding in verse one of that little word received there in the middle or nearer the end of verse one. Decomai is the Greek word. It's an heiress middle infinitive for you Greek guys, and there's a sense in which in this form in the Greek, there's a sense in which you have received this grace in the past, and there's a sense in which you have or in which this grace is continuously flowing to you even now in the presence and will in the future. It is continuously flowing and will continue to flow, and you have received it. It came to you in the past. Think about it with me, right? There's a time that you first filled your lungs with air. I pray you're still doing that, right? There's a time when that first took place, when you took your first breath, you didn't take that first breath in vain, did you? It's still profiting you now to breathe. That breath profited you. It accomplished purpose for which it was given, and you grew some of you more than others. Now hopefully you've been breathing air ever since. Hopefully it's still profiting you. It's a connection. If you're a genuine disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, then there was a first moment. There was a first time, so to speak, in which the saving benefits of the gospel secured by Christ and mediated by the Spirit were applied to you by the grace of God. That amazing grace profited you. It accomplished the purpose for which it was given. You were made alive in Christ from dead in trespasses and sins. You were forgiven of your sin. You were cleansed. You were washed. You were justified. You were reconciled to God. You began to grow in Christ. If it was real, if it was true, if it actually happened, you began to grow. Wind blows where it wishes. We see the effects of it, right? We see the rustling of the trees. We see the fruits of it. You saw growth. The grace of God was producing fruit in you, teaching you, as Paul says to Titus, to deny ungodliness and worldly lust, teaching you to live soberly, righteously, godly in this present age. That grace strengthening you in the battle against sin, that grace comforting you in hard circumstances, that grace equipping you to serve in the church, that grace compelling you to preach the gospel, that grace enabling you to live the Christian life, that grace showing you that apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, you can do nothing and all that we do in him is in him, through him, through that grace. In other words, grace was poured out to you in salvation and you've been standing under a waterfall of God's grace, receiving it ever since. And you will be receiving it into eternity, past, present, and future. There's a sobering sense from our text in which we must be concerned that none of that manifold grace of God is received in vain. Grace comes to us. If you're in Christ, grace comes to you past, present, and it will come future, promised by God. There's a sense in which we as believers, those who profess the name of Christ, those who have said, I've turned for my sin, I've given my heart, my life to Christ, I'm entrusted myself to him, we need to be concerned that none of that grace is received in vain. We must be good stewards of the grace of God. And we'll explain that as we go through the text. I want you to see this, point one, really. The reality of God's grace is confirmed in verse two as the biblical foundation for Paul's plea in verse one. Don't receive the grace of God in vain, verse two, for because he, God says, notice it doesn't say he said, says God says. He's about to quote the Old Testament. He's about to quote the prophet Isaiah, who wrote 700 years before this time. And what does Paul say? He says present active, right? We need to take heed to that. For God says in an acceptable time, I have heard you. And in the day of salvation, I have helped you. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Now notice from verse two, from verse two, God's grace is confirmed or affirmed in the past. God's grace is confirmed or affirmed in the present. And from verse one and verse two, we know that in Paul's heart and mind, he is concerned with God's grace to them in the future, concerned with the future. At the beginning of verse two, I want you to see God's grace is confirmed in the past. That past promise, that past prophecy found in Isaiah chapter 49 is in verse two, comes from Paul here, from the prophet Isaiah. Turn to Isaiah 49 with me, Isaiah 49. Let's take a look at that together. Isaiah 49 is the second of four servant songs in Isaiah in which God's servant, the Messiah is referenced, Messiah, the one who would come out of Israel to redeem God's people. Progress of revelation, very clear to us from the New Testament, this is the Lord Jesus Christ. He was, the Lord Jesus Christ is the suffering servant. Isaiah chapter 49, verse one, listen, O coastlands, can't help but think that when I see that, how we would pray that the coastlands would hear him today, those liberal parts of the country, not speaking politically, I'm speaking spiritually, big cities where there's just such great wickedness, coastlands listen. He's calling for all to listen, but certainly there's great godlessness there. Listen O coastlands, to me, God's servant here in verse one, and take heed, you people from afar, all should listen. The Lord has called me, now this is God's servant, the Messiah, the suffering servant, the Lord Jesus Christ speaking. The Lord has called me from the womb, from the matrix of my mother, he has made mention of my name, he has made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he has hidden me, and made me a polished shaft, in his quiver he has hidden me. He has said to me, you are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. It's interesting in verse three that he's referred to as Israel, right? The fulfillment of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ. You could certainly say the quintessential Jew, the seed, as Paul spoke of, right? The seed, as promised to the woman, O Israel, the fulfillment of Israel, in whom I will be glorified. Verse four, then I said, I have labored in vain. Imagine the Lord Jesus Christ, right, as he heads into the garden on the night before he dies, preparing to drink the cup of God's wrath, having been made sin for us on Calvary. God, as it were, tides his face from him, turns his face from him, the cry of dereliction from the Lord Jesus Christ, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? In his incarnation, you get a glimpse of the heart of the Lord in his ministry to sinners on this earth, on his way to Calvary. He says in verse four, I've labored in vain. I've spent my strength for nothing and in vain, yet surely my just reward is with the Lord. He trusts God. He trusts in the faithfulness of God. He says in my work is with my God. Verse five, and now the Lord says, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, so that Israel is gathered to him. For I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. Verse six, indeed he says, it is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel. I will, and here, listen to this, praise God. I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth. Amen. Amen. Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, their holy one, to whom man despises, to whom the nation abhors, he is the suffering servant. To the servant of rulers, God says, kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the Lord who is faithful, the holy one of Israel, and he has chosen you. Verse eight, thus says the Lord, in an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you. When did this come about? Came about at the cross, as Jesus Christ paid the penalty due to the sins of his people. In an acceptable time I have heard you, in the day of salvation I have helped you.  He will not abandon the soul of his son to sheol, normally let his holy one see corruption, and God says, I will give you as a covenant to the people to restore the earth. That's where we're headed, right? To cause them to inherit the desolate heritages, God will give his servant, his only begotten son, in purchase of the new covenant. It was in the upper room on the night before his death that Jesus told his disciples, the cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.  As we consider that text in Isaiah 49, turn back with me now to 2 Corinthians chapter 6. Paul takes that promise of new covenant grace from the past, Isaiah chapter 49. The promise of God. He confirms it by quoting this text and then applies it to the professing believers in Corinth in the present. Listen to what Paul says there, verse 2. Behold now is the accepted time. Behold now is the day of salvation. Paul is essentially saying by handling the text in this way, that the promise of God in Isaiah, that glorious promise when the Messiah would raise up the tribes of Jacob, when he would come as the light to the Gentiles and bring salvation to the ends of the earth, that time Paul says is now. In other words, that day, not a moment in time, not a flash in time only, but a time period that lasts from the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the time of the preaching of the gospel now in which God pours out his salvation. Now is the accepted time. That time being fulfilled in the ministry of Paul as he preaches the gospel in Corinth. That time being fulfilled in the ministry of this church today as we preach the gospel to you. Now is the accepted time. Behold now is the day of salvation. God's promised grace in the Lord Jesus Christ, his servant, is being poured out now. Now is the time of God's favor, the acceptable time. Now is the time when you must forsake your sin. Now is when you must turn from sin to trust Christ alone. Now is the time when you repent and believe the gospel. Paul emphasizes the urgency, the importance of that understanding by twice using the word behold in verse two. I can imagine the apostle Paul right bellowing these words in the open air as he was preaching. Wake up you slumbering sinner.  You are spiritually dead and he says to you wake up, behold now is the accepted time. Speak the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. God says my spirit will not always strive with man. My spirit will not strive with man forever. Behold now is the day of salvation. There's an urgency to these words, behold, means listen up, pay attention. There is a demand placed upon you. God even now pouring out his grace in the preaching of the gospel. There is forgiveness of sins now in Christ. The thing which you most need is being offered to you now in the preaching of God's word. Offered to you now from the pages of scripture. Don't receive it in vain. Don't squander away. Don't turn a blind eye or a deaf ear. Work isn't that important. Whatever else is going on in your mind is not that important. It is not that. I can say that with complete confidence in Christ. There's nothing more important than your soul. There's nothing more important than the glory of God and salvation, the salvation of his people. God gave everything to redeem his people, including his only begotten son. We must pay attention. The world isn't a slumber, right? How many people do you witness to and they're just, they don't get it. There's a veil over their heart, a veil over their minds. That veil must be lifted by the spirit in the preaching of the word of God. That's why you and I have to preach it. Your soul should be your primary concern. Money is not important. Family is not that important. Not as important as this. Health isn't as important as this. That girlfriend, that boyfriend, whatever you have in this world that you don't want to let go of. It isn't. It is not as important as your soul.  It just slips through your fingers at the end of your life and it's gone. Take heed to how you hear. Take heed to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. There's so many ways in which this grace is received in vain. Do you see? Consider how past grace, there's so much time bound here, right? What's up in verse one and verse two? Consider how past grace is received in vain. If you're lost, if you've never turned from your sin to trust Christ alone for salvation, if you've never entrusted all that you are to him, if you're not following him as Lord, then you have received, so far to this point, you have received the grace of God to you in vain. If you fail to respond to the call of God in the gospel, then you are even now. If you're rebelling in your heart and mind, if you're arguing with the text of Scripture right now, arguing with these spiritual truths that transcend worldly wisdom, if you're arguing in your heart and mind even now, you're receiving the grace of God in vain. You may say today, right, as many surely did in the church at Corinth, you may say to yourself, I know I'm saved. Back in that day, I did this thing, did that thing, prayed that prayer, and I know the Bible teaches that I can't lose my salvation. And listen, that's true. If you're genuinely in Christ, you can't lose your salvation. Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice. I know them. They follow me. I give them eternal. How eternal is it if you can lose it? I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand.  Don't let it deceive you. Take honest inventory of your heart. Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? Heart, soul, mind, and strength?  Your heart is dead to the things of God. This doesn't move you. You have no abiding love for reading and meditating on His Word. Just a dead ritual to you if you do it at all. You have no abiding love for knowing Him, for speaking after Him. You have no hunger and thirst in your heart for righteousness? The false professing Christian receives the grace of God in vain when he fails to truly and genuinely repent and believe in Christ. You will be among the many in that day who will say to him, Lord, Lord, did I go to church every Sunday? Did I fellowship with God's people on occasion? Wasn't I there when they needed help with the move? Wasn't I there when they needed a meal for the right? Didn't I sit under the preaching of your Word? Didn't I put on a good show? Didn't I put on a good face? Didn't I go Sunday in and Sunday out? And yet you have received the grace of God in vain. If that's you, turn from your sin now. You know, it's preaching like this from the Word of God, right? That we hear on a regular basis. There's no grace in it. Where's the grace in that? Are you kidding me? Listen to the grace of God, that you and I wicked sinners. Now, if you don't think that's gracious for someone to call you a wicked sinner, well, then you have a problem with the Bible. You have a problem with God's diagnosis of you. But you and I wicked sinners who continue, even those of us in Christ, amen, we still battle with the flesh. Our best prayers have enough sin in them, Bunyan said, to damn the world. And yet we don't think it's gracious that the truth of that is preached to us. And as we know it, as we recognize it, as we acknowledge that, to know that God still in Christ lavishes grace upon us so that we can be His forever. Right? Amazing grace. But we only understand that grace in the context truly. We only understand it truly in the context of our own sin and depravity. Both truths must be understood, must be acknowledged. Maybe you profess to know Christ, but you haven't persevered. You said I was seven, eight, 12, maybe you were 20, maybe you were 30. Maybe it was last year. You said I'm a Christian. Lord, have saved me. I'm forgiven of my sin. The blood of Christ applies to me. And then you have fallen away from your profession. You have not persevered in the faith. Be sure that if you do not persevere in the faith, you are never truly saved to begin with. You have received the grace of God in vain. Someone says that I prayed to receive Christ when I was seven. And maybe for a period of time as a child being obedient to your parents, you were relatively moral. Then when you get to high school, you fall into sin. When you get into college, you fall into more sin. You get into adult life and you fall into more sin. There's been a pattern of unfaithfulness, a pattern in departing from the living God, a pattern of not concerning yourself with the things of God. You have received the grace of God in vain. Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 2, you are saved if, Paul says, you hold fast that word which I preached to you unless you believed in vain. If you don't hold fast, your profession of faith is in vain. You have believed in vain. You've received the grace of God in vain. Turn from your sins now. Trust Christ now and be saved. Don't deceive yourselves.  The one who sins is of the devil. Don't deceive yourselves. There were those in Corinth who were receiving the grace of God in vain. Paul's concern here in 2 Corinthians chapter 6, beginning in verse 1, there were those in Corinth who were not genuinely converted. They may have heard the word preach to them at one point, right? And like those false professing Christians of Matthew 13, maybe at that beginning point when they first received the word, they immediately received it with joy, right? They spring up, there's joy. I'm a Christian. I've been forgiven by sins. They become members of the church. They're serving with you. They're singing with you. But when times get tough, when the accusations in Corinth begin to fly, when a deceiving wolf false teacher entices them with a message they'd rather hear, a message that tickles their ear, maybe they've heard a message, a perspective, if you will, of Christianity. It says it's okay to not be that committed. I'd rather go somewhere where I can just sort of add my Christianity to whatever else is going on in my life. I've got a lot of stuff going on in the middle of the week. So I want to go somewhere where I can go to church on Sunday. That's what I believe about the Christian life. And you've got someone in that pulpit telling you, that's the case. You're enticed away by no accountability. Got other things going on? More things that are important to me. Don't meddle in by business. I'm fine, I believe. I believe, I believe, I believe. When tribulation or persecution arises, when the cares of this world press in, because they have no genuine root in themselves, they endure only for a while and they stumble and they fall. It reveals that they were never really, truly born again to begin with. Hebrews chapter three, verse 14, for we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. So what about you this morning? What about you this morning? Have you received the grace of God in vain? Be a good steward of the grace of God. Take heed how you hear. Will you be a Judas? Judas sat under the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Will you be a Simon Magus? Will you be an Ananias, a Sapphira? Will you be a Demus? Will you be one of those hard-hearted Pharisees? Hebrews chapter two, verse one, we must give the more earnest heed to the things that we have heard lest we drift away. That is not a fictional hypothetical, right? That's a warning from the Lord. Take earnest heed to the things we have heard. Does that mean we can lose our salvation? No, it's clearly established in the Bible. The issue is, are you genuinely His to begin with? Don't drift away. God uses means, right? And He uses means of these warnings and He uses means of grace to hold His people in the faith, to preserve them in the faith. If you receive the grace of those means in vain, you can drift away. Let me give you an example of what this looks like. Turn with me to Jeremiah 36. Jeremiah 36. Jeremiah 36, we have an example here in the account of Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, king of Judah. Jeremiah is prophesying against Jehoiakim in the kingdom. He's prophesying of soon deliverance into captivity, prophesying judgment. It's the beginning in verse 20. Look what it says here, of king Jehoiakim. He went to the king, into the court, but they stored the scroll in the chamber of Elisama, the scribe, and told all the words in the hearing of the king. This is the scroll of the prophecy of Jeremiah to the king. Verse 21. So the king sent Jehoiakim to bring the scroll and he took it from Elisama, the scribe's chamber. And Jehoiakim read it in the hearing of the king and in the hearing of all the princes who stood beside the king. Now the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth month with a fire burning on the hearth before him. And it happened when Jehoiakim had read three or four columns of the scroll that the king cut it with the scribe's knife and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth until all the scroll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth. Now imagine the scene if you're there, right? The scroll of Jeremiah. This is the word of God. This is the word of God.  You almost see him smacking his gum while he's doing it and tosses the word of God into the fire. Verse 24, yet they were not afraid. Nor did they care their garments. The king or any of his servants who heard all these words. They weren't afraid of the words on the scroll. They didn't care their garments or their sin. And they weren't concerned with what they were doing to the word of God. Nevertheless, Eleanathan, Deliah, Nehmeriah implored the king not to burn the scroll, but he would not listen to them. He says, if Paul was saying, don't take the grace of God in vain, right? Don't burn the scroll in your hearts and minds. He wouldn't listen. Verse 26, and the king commanded, Jeremiah, the king's son, Saraiah, the son of Azrael, and Shelemiah, the son of Abdeel, to seize Baruch, the scribe, and Jeremiah, the prophet. But the Lord hid them. Rather than weeping over their sin, rather than acknowledging God for the grace that he was showing them and bringing them the word of Jeremiah, this wicked king wants to arrest Jeremiah and kill him taking the grace of God in vain, right? And so you say to yourself, I'm not ripping pages out of my Bible and burning them on a hearth as they are read to me, which might as well be if you leave it sitting under the coffee table week after week and never read it. It's a closed book to you. What good is it to you? This is the grace of God. You can go on the internet and you can find, I can't even count them, the number of translations of the Bible available. The number of things written about the Bible, the volumes and the volumes and the volumes, God's manifold grace to his people. We've been given so much light. It is blinding in glory. And yet we walk around with some absolute, darkest shade of sunglasses you can find so that it won't penetrate. You might as well be burning it in the fire. Back in 2nd Corinthians chapter six, I want you to see though that in applying Isaiah chapter 49, that text from the suffering servant in Isaiah 49, in applying that text to the present spiritual condition of those at Corinth, Paul strongly emphasizes the concern for the present conditions on the ground there, so to speak. In other words, verse two, 2nd Corinthians chapter six, verse two expresses a present concern for how we interact with the grace of God in Christ. Look at verse one, Paul says, we then as workers together with him, we also plead with you, present active indicative, we plead ongoing continuously, we plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, in an acceptable time I have heard you and in the day of salvation I have helped you, behold now, now present is the accepted time, behold now present is the day of salvation. You can receive the grace of God in vain when you fail to truly receive it as it comes to you in the gospel. You wind up a false professing Christian, one who falls away, you may go all the way as pilgrims progress, right? All the way to the celestial city and find that next to the doorway into the celestial city, there's even yet there a doorway which leads to hell. You can receive the grace of God in vain when you fail to live in light of that grace in your Christian life. There is a past sense in which we can take the grace of God in vain, receive it in vain, and there's a present sense in which we can receive the grace of God in vain. In the church at Corinth, there certainly were those who were deceived disciples, those who were false professing Christians, certainly that's the case. There were others, however, who had been truly saved, genuine brothers, genuine sisters, having a hard time in the church at Corinth. God had past tense in an acceptable time. In the day of their salvation, God had past tense come to them and he had poured out his saving grace upon them. Paul says to them, having considered that's the fact, you have been saved past tense by grace. Paul says to them, now is the accepted time for God's grace as well. Now is the day for repentance. Now is the day for faith. If you have trailed away from God, if you've trailed off after these false apostles, if you've trailed off into your sin, turn back now at Paul's rebuke. It is the grace of God. Don't take the grace of God to you in vain. What are you doing with the grace of God right now? Don't receive it in vain. When you turn from your sin to entrust yourself to the grace of God in Christ, he who knew no sin was made sin for me so that I could become the righteousness of God in him. Justifying grace pours into your heart, right? Saving grace transforms your heart, changes your desires, changes your affections, changes the way that you think, makes of you a new creation and reconciles you to God. However, however, that grace that comes to you in that saving way never, never leaves you there. Never leaves you there. One pastor used this illustration from the Puritan, John Engel James. Listen to this. Imagine a man in prison under sentence of death. And at the same time, he is dangerously ill with fever. If the Supreme Court should pardon him, that is still not enough for his safety and happiness for soon he will die of his disease, do you see? That sickness has to be cured if he is going to live. On the other hand, if the doctor should cure his disease, it is going to be of little consequence unless the Supreme Court gives him a reprieve. We need both, don't we? He might get better physically, but what good is that if he must soon experience the lethal injection? Of course, you may get better morally, you may clean your act up, you may put on a good show, what put on the face of the hypocrite.  What James is saying? Only, only, only if he is both pardoned and cured, will he be completely saved. There are those who say, who say, right, I'm saved. I'm not being sanctified. I'm not growing, I'm not maturing. I'm not growing in holiness. Rest assured, you're not saved. Those who are saved are those who are sanctified, right? Two distinct things, salvation and sanctification, but they are married together. No man can perish under that which God has married together. Sanctification follows salvation. So it is with us, James says, the grace that truly justifies us must be a grace that also sanctifies us or we have received that grace in vain. Time of grace is not past. Time of grace is present. People all over the world right now that need to be saved. The Lord has, as the Lord has said before, right? The Lord has many in this city. If will, but go out and preach to them, the Lord will save them too. He is faithful to his word. He will gather in his elect. It has given us the gracious and merciful responsibility. The lofty and high position as ambassadors of Christ to preach the gospel now is the day of his saving and sanctifying grace. You're here today. You say, I'm saved. I've seen a work of grace in my heart. I know it's not accomplished by me. I've been changed. I'm not the person that I once was. I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I'm very now even more well acquainted with my sin and I despise it from the heart. If it were possible to rip open my breasts without anesthetics and rip from me the sin that dwells there, I'd be happy to have it done. But if you're here this morning, then you can claim that by the grace of God. And the day of God's grace to you has not passed. He still pours it out upon you. Don't receive it in vain. Don't receive it in vain. Don't neglect it. Don't reject it. In 2 Corinthians 6 verses one and two, there is past grace. We need to be concerned about that. There is present grace. Certainly need to be concerned about that. But there's also a future concern, a future concern. Will you now, and going forward, avail yourself of the grace of God in Christ? So many ways, so many ways that we can receive the grace of God in vain. So many ways that this text can be applied to us. When the word of God is being preached here and you neglect that. When the word of God is being taught here and you won't give it a hearing. When your brothers and sisters gather here to serve the Lord and you don't gather together with them. When the people of God gather in fellowship and you miss it. When the people of God gather for worship.  When you don't allow the spirit of God to break your heart over your sin. When you don't humble yourselves at the preaching of God's word. When you don't turn at his rebuke. All these ways in which we receive the grace of God in vain. When you fail in applying the means of grace that God has provided to battle your sin. There's no mystery in this. There's no silver bullet. God has given us, told us clearly and it's simple and good and holy and righteous and just. When you don't avail yourself of the means of his word. When you don't avail yourself of the grace of God in prayer. When you don't avail yourself of meditation on God's word. When you don't avail yourself of that sharpening iron from another brother.  Romans chapter five verse one. Therefore having been justified by faith. Having been past tense justified by faith. We have present tense peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice in hope future of the glory of God. Hebrews four, my brother referenced it this morning. The word of God preached to them as it was preached to us did not profit to them because they did not mix with it faith in God for his promises to them. They received the word of God in vain. Will you fail to labor for the Lord in ministry? I am too busy. I've got too much going on. Your priorities are wrong. Will you fail to labor for the Lord in ministry? Ephesians chapter three verse two. Paul says to the church of Ephesus, you have heard of the dispensation of grace which God has given to me for you. Paul says, I've been given grace by God for you for the church of Ephesus. Obviously for all of these churches and my application for us, praise the Lord. But flip back just a couple of pages to first Corinthians 15. First Corinthians 15. What did Paul do with that grace? First Corinthians 15 verse nine. For I am the least of the apostles, Paul said, who am not worthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am.  I've been given a ministry, right? I've been given a responsibility because God, excuse me, God has poured out his grace upon me. I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not in vain. Now Paul doesn't say, right? He doesn't say, yeah, I worked and I worked and look at what I did as if it were all Paul. As if it were all in his strength, all according to his power, no, no. But Paul knew that God dispensed his grace to Paul. Paul trusted in that. Paul supplied, or God supplied all that Paul needed. Paul says, God is the one who makes us adequate, sufficient to the task. God has dispensed his grace to me and that grace to me was not in vain. Why? But I labored. Now, even though that grace comes from God, Paul knows that he has a responsibility to God with it. If you say the grace of God has been poured out to you, listen brother, listen sister, you have a responsibility to God with it. Paul says, it's not to me in vain because I labored more abundantly than they all. Yet not I, since the paradox. I'm laboring, I'm striving, I'm working. I've got sleepless nights, I'm toiling. I'm in hunger and I'm in thirst. I'm in persecuted and stripes beyond measure and prisoned three nights in a deep. Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Paul acknowledges that it is the grace of God that worked through him that produces the fruit. Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believe, you have the grace of God given to you. You have responsibility with that grace. Here specifically, verse 11 results in Paul preaching. Paul just gets done telling us in chapter five, verse 20, that we are ambassadors for Christ. God, chapter five, verse 19, is committed to us the word of reconciliation. Will that grace fall to you in vain? Will it fall to you in vain? Will you fail to labor for the Lord in the ministry that she has given to you? Will you fail to minister to the Lord's people? Quickly turn with me to 1 Peter chapter four. 1 Peter chapter four, will you fail to minister to the Lord's people? We hear it on a regular basis here. I say it on a regular basis here. How good God is to us. How gracious he is to us in this church. What a beautiful blessing of God's grace this church is. When I say church, I mean you. Lord, thank you for the building. The building is wonderful, but we mean you. We love you. It is a joy to minister here. It is a joy to serve God with you. It is the grace of God to us, this very special place. We have responsibility with that. We've been given responsibility. You have responsibility to the brothers and sisters here, right? You don't have responsibility to brothers and sisters elsewhere in the same way that you have responsibility to brothers and sisters here. God has planted you here, placed you here, and God in his grace to us knits us just so together such that if you don't, if you're not faithful in your responsibility, the gift that he's given to you falls in reign toward the rest of your brothers and sisters here. Do you see? We're to minister to one another here. We get 1 Peter chapter four. This thought is expressed beginning in verse seven. But the end of all things is at hand. Peter could say that in the first century. We certainly can say that now, right? Even more so 2,000 years later. The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, what's our response to that? Therefore, be serious, watchful in your prayers. It's assumed there that you will spend serious and watchful time in prayer. And above all things, above all things, have fervent love for one another. Love will cover a multitude of sins. I find it difficult to imagine that you could say that you love your brothers when you are never here, when you intentionally absent yourself from the gatherings of God's people. When you can just as easily go somewhere else, you could come here, right? Where is your love for the brothers? Where is your love for the Lord? And where's your love for the brothers? Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. And as each one has received, again, notice that passive has received. This is not something that you work up in your own strength or that you develop in your own strength. You have passive, have received it. Each one has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. In two categories then listed in verse 11. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. You have a gift to be able to speak. You have responsibility for the way that you speak. If anyone ministers, if anyone serves, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies. And many by God's grace have both gifts, some have one, some have the other, but we have gifts given to us by God. Use them, use it as if God, because he is giving it to you with the strength that God supplies. In other words, independence upon him, independence upon him. So that in all things, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. The grace of God that comes to us works. The grace of God that comes to us works. What keeps it from working other than you standing in its way. When you receive the grace of God in vain, it's a common thing that you pour out on the ground that not in an act of worship, pour out on the ground because it means nothing to you. What a grievous sin against God.  Or are you a doer? Don't allow grace, the tide, blood, fire hose of God's grace come to you like salt water into a dead sea and just sits there and things that die in it. And if you labor in his grace through faith, there's a promise in 2 Corinthians chapter six verses one and two. If you labor in his grace through faith, there's a promise. We then as workers together with him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For because he, God says, in an acceptable time I've heard you and in the day of salvation I've helped you. What a glorious grace of God even now in the present. Behold now is the accepted time. Behold now brothers and sisters is the day of salvation. I all praise, honor and glory to the one who lavishes his grace upon us. Amen.


Hello there, it's Sandy Olak and today I am going to be coloring a bunny and making an easel card. Colorado Craft Company came out with another release of Anita Jerome Stamps and this one has a lot of Valentine's and Love Stamps for the sentiments. I'm not going to be using one of those because I don't have a Valentine. I'm going to be sending stuff to my family, but I'm not going to send them kissy-kissies necessarily. My family's just not that way so I'm going to have some different kinds of cards that I send them for Valentine's Day. But the first little part in this I'm coloring is the sky. I wanted a nice soft sky and what I did was take some colorless blender and put it down on the paper first and then add the BEE Triple Zero and that ended up giving me softer edges. So if you want really soft edges you can do that. I'm also going to be adding some leaves up in the sky so I'm not too worried if I didn't get the blending really perfect because I'm going to be covering some of that up. But if you end up with a perfect sky don't add the leaves. In this scene you could just leave it as is because you know you don't want to wreck a perfectly good sky. Now for this little bunny I wanted to make it brown so I'm going to use a trio of colors in order to make the bunny and they're two steps away from each other. So this is an E11, the mid-tone will be an E13, and the dark is an E15. Now with any kinds of combinations like this you can even go darker. I generally do, that's generally my my way is to go for a lot more contrast, but I'm going to try to see if I can keep myself down to a little more of a minimum and keep this a little bit fresher in the coloring of the bunnies because the way that Anita Jerome colors her stuff, she uses watercolor, I wanted it to feel a little bit softer. So I'm not going to go crazy and add in a whole lot more. I did choose an E42 for the belly because I wanted that to be a little different color almost a dirtier kind of color, a cream. And now for this bunny I'm going to use three grays, a one three and five, just like I used a one three and five in the ease. I'm going to use a one three and five here. It doesn't matter if you use a cool, a warm, a toner, a neutral, it's going to look like a gray bunny regardless. But the different kinds of grays give you just a slightly different look and for each one I put down the lightest color first, then I go to the darkest, the mid-tone and then I look for any areas where I might want to do a little bit of blending with that lighter color. And then of course we have a carrot being handed over as a gift. I do hope nobody gives me a carrot as a gift for a Valentine's present because I would want chocolate. No carrots, thank you very much, but I guess I'm not a rabbit so that's okay. Now for the scene I'm going to start to build up a really soft scene down here. For the top to the grass I wanted it to kind of disappear and you know don't want to have those little lines so I'm going to blend the YG03 without YG01 at the top. You could also use the same technique I used for the sky if you want that top edge to be soft. Put down some colorless blender first. And then as always the drama because I have to have drama in my cards I have to have some stronger lighting. So I'm darkening the foreground with a YG17 and then a YG67. And my YG67 has a weird nib thing that it does so it ends up giving me this weird texture as well. I've tried changing the nib on this one and no matter what I do it seems to get gunky on me but as long as it keeps working I'm gonna not buy a new one. Seems kind of silly to do that. So I'm going to add a more contrasty shadow under the bunnies. Now for a lot of people this might be just enough for a scene but for me it never is because I overdo everything. So I'm going to add almost a frame around my rabbits and I'm gonna put two trees one on either side. This first one I was playing around with what the edge should look like. Then I want it to be a straight tree. Lots of people will make a very straight straight straight tree but trees have bark and they're kind of funky so I find that a straight tree ends up looking a little stilted. So I made a sort of a funky edge to it. Gonna do the same thing here on the other side and as I was doing this and creating my bark I realized that I'm gonna be trimming off the outside edges of this because I wanted to make an easel card. I made an easel card in forever and I was gonna need more trees because if I was gonna trim this down so that I can put all the layers that I want to on the card I need to add more tree. So add an in more tree on both sides in order to have enough that I can trim off. The branches here if your sky came out perfect then by all means don't bother adding these branches in but I'm gonna add some leaves and I've made some sketchy types of branches in here. I didn't just draw a big old honking thing. I want this to feel delicate and light and I also don't want all of these leaves to feel very much stilted like you know we're gonna have an even number on left and right make everything perfect. I just wanted it to feel all loose and floppy leaves and I also added a second green. I'm using the same greens that I used in the ground down there so that there's a reflection of color between the two and just putting some marks up here for the leaves not really trying to draw leaves specifically. And then my brown that I used for the dark brown for the bark just didn't feel dark enough so I used some of the dark green to do that as well.  I did a green layer, a brown layer and a green layer on a yellow card front and so that is the whole thing there. I've got some dimensional adhesive underneath that whole chunk of panels and then to make the card base for the easel card taking an eight and a half by eleven cut it in half so I had a four and a quarter by eleven and then do the normal middle fold at five and a half inches so that I have a five and a half inch long card that'll fit in a bloke and then half of the distance. I'm going to make a two and three quarters inch mark so that that half is divided in half. So if you're using a whole different set of measurements and you're making a whole different size card, fold it in half and then fold the other half in half to make the easel portion. So here I'm going to fold it around until I get to the correct place to fold and score the whole thing on my score buddy and then this is going to stand up this way it's going to make a little triangle where the card front is going to be adhered to the bottom portion only of that and you'll see how that works out in a minute but before I added it on I decided I better put this in my misty and add a sentiment and I went to these other stamp sets that I have from Colorado Craft Company to see what fits. You know some of these are a little more generic. I can send them to anybody and not be just Valentine's sentiments so this little one seemed like it was going to be perfect. Adhered my panel onto that bottom half of the half but I need something for the easel card to stand up on so I've got some adhesive on this strip of green paper and I decided that I wanted it only up to the white. I added all these layers on the inside too because I just love a lot of layers on a card and I had a strip of the scrap of yellow that I had cut off and added that to it as well so that I could trim that down and then when somebody opens the card and they want to stand it up they can stand it up that way and it has that little base for the easel card to stand up on. So that is my crazy card for you today. I hope you'll try an easel card sometime. It's lots of fun and all the supply links are in the doobly-doo as always. I will see you again in another video tutorial very soon. Have an awesome day. Take care.


Hundreds of hikers are expected to take part in the 11th annual North Country Hiking Fest at Itasca State Park this Saturday, August 26th. The event will feature a daypack full of family, friendly and healthy activities focusing on hiking within the park. Hiking Fest participants will also attempt something never before tried in Minnesota, a hike blitz of the park where every trail is hiked in one day. Officials say the goal of the event is to hike each and every one of the 49 miles of hiking trails within the park on that day. They say they will need lots of hikers to reach that goal. Hiking and event information will be available outside the Jacob Brower Visitor Center beginning at 9 a.m. with early guided hikes starting at 10. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


My focus has been on the societal impact of predictive algorithms and that is a topic that's really at the forefront of public debates and also in the field of AI and data science. My name is Ajuna Suriadi and I'm a student of the Masters Programme Philosophy of Data and Digital Society at Silberg University. For example, in Amsterdam an algorithm was developed to predict criminal behavior in children in the future and this gives rise to some ethical considerations. It makes us realize that we need to ask the question is it ethical and desirable for children to be predicted by an algorithm before they have done anything wrong and we need to ask is this the kind of trend we want to allow in society and if yes in what way. What I love most about this Masters Programme was its comprehensive approach. I have gained some deep philosophical understanding from various perspectives, ethical, political and technological and I think it's essential for anyone who wants to work in AI ethics to have this holistic approach. What stands out for me in the program is its ability to equip students to meaningfully engage in societal debates that you also see in the news. For example, in class we had a discussion about the discriminatory effects of predictive policing and this is essential to have the philosophical grounding to address these actual cases effectively. As a student I balance my academic life with my role as the founder of Expertise Centrum Data Ethique and this position allows me to directly apply my philosophical knowledge in the real-life challenges that we see in AI ethics. What stands out for me about studying at Tilburg University is that there's always room for contact with the professors and that there are short communication lines and this allows me to delve even deeper into the topics that I am passionate about. To future students I would say embrace your passion and your curiosity because this program is a unique opportunity for you to delve into the questions that shape our daily lives and it opens your mind to ways of making an impact and you will be able to understand AI and also act with it so that everyone will benefit.


Really, the challenge that we face as human beings is child versus adult. The social media, the culture we live in, it wants to keep us infantilised consumers obsessed with the material world so that we keep buying products and they can keep harvesting taxes.


Special Olympics 200 coming up he saw the males compete in the 100 meters and now the females over 200 meters coming through in lane number five Connys Mart on in four crystal Ross well clear of the rest of the field just been able to come out here and compete a victory for these young athletes in front of a wonderful crowd at the Kirani James athletic stadium they get to parade their skills show exactly what they are made of always a fabulous moment to witness this truly sport a celebration of the perseverance of the human spirit


I love these days, especially because everything's kind of going in the right direction and we see everything going up and we're extremely happy. And today we have to talk about a little something that's X CEO and CEO of a lot of different companies Elon Musk comes out and talks about payments are coming to X. And me personally, I've got my opinion on what that could actually be. So Elon Musk says X will launch payment services by mid 2024. And this all came from Kathy Wood. Looks like she sat down with Elon Musk in Twitter Spaces. So speaking of ARC Invest, Kathy Wood on December 21st X Space Musk said he expects payment services to be fully launched sometime by the middle of next year, pending the approval of several money transmitter license applications. Moving down, Tesla CEO has never confirmed this as far as crypto and appears to have put a further damper on crypto related enthusiasm after revealing he spends hardly any time thinking about digital assets, which is pretty telling because not too long ago, he was pumping Dogecoin for quite some time. However, Tesla still holds some roughly 148 million in Bitcoin and its balance sheet. And then as a reminder reports in 2022 all suggest that Musk's tunnel construction from the boring company had begun allowing customers to pay for rides on its Las Vegas transit system using Dogecoin. So before we jump to conclusions, this was last year, July 7, 2022. And really what he was alluding to the fact. It wasn't like he was saying, yeah, we're going to take Dogecoin. But someone just asked like, hey, how can you incorporate Dogecoin as much as possible? And Elon said, hey, I'm supporting Doge whenever, wherever and whenever possible. Does that mean that's going to be the end all be all as far as for the actual payment system? It's anybody's guess. But I will say it is telling that he has two logos in his Twitter profile or X profile. One is the X logo. The second one is the Dogecoin logo. So if he picks Dogecoin, I wouldn't be too surprised. Maybe he picks Bitcoin and the lighting network. Maybe he picks XRP. Maybe he picks Bonk. Maybe he picks tomato coin. I have no idea. But I will say I don't expect him to do something like with just straight up fiat cash. And this is why. Musk explained that he imagines money and digital assets as a database for resource allocation and that fiat currency is actually fine. So long as state actors don't try to debase the currency by manipulating its supply. I don't know how long you've been on the show or on the channel itself and watch me. But you know by now that I agree with the fact that the federal government does manipulate the supply and that's called money printing. And that's why when we take a look at Bitcoin and different digital assets that are out there and we can see that there is a massive inflation rate going on, it's because the money printer goes on. So if he's saying that fiat is fine as long as it's not the basement, that's a green light for crypto. Anyhow, let me just think about that in the comment section and also Ethereum. Now as we've gone forward in this cycle, it seems like Ethereum has kind of fallen off and really hasn't done a whole heck of a lot. It has appreciated. But as a reminder, it's not so much about a winner-take-all type of thing. I know some people will say like Abba Robb, as long as it's blowing up and it'll just keep going up forever and it'll be just a winner-take-all and it'll be a black hole and it'll be absorbed to everything. And I just remind everybody, just look back into everything as far as like digital. Remember social media platforms? I remember there was one called Friendster and that was the big thing and everybody went into that. And it was MySpace and you had to be on MySpace. Then of course it became Facebook and everybody had to be on Facebook. Then all of a sudden Facebook fell out of favor and all of a sudden you had Instagram, which Facebook actually bought up and that's the reason why it's still pretty much relevant today because it buys up those types of properties. Then of course we get X and then we get TikTok and a whole different host of things. So for us just to take a look and say there's only one thing and one thing to win only, I don't think that's really the case. I think there's use cases for a lot of different things and if you believe it's going to be great for you, so much the better. Me personally, if you watch my video, I own a ton of different crypto. I diversify for me personally, I think they might do just fine. Here's why. Ethereum emerges as a key blockchain for tokenized real world assets. This is from Cristiano Ventracelli, nailed it, of Moody's. Moody's is a credit ratings for global markets. And here's what they talk about. And they say blockchain could lessen the need for intermediaries of the middleman. In the issuance process, thereby improving operational efficiency and potentially reducing costs. All that really just saying is like there's too much paperwork, so many people taking the cuts. If you limit the middleman, you can have cost savings in there by greater revenue. Distributor technology also underlies tokenization of real world assets or RWAs, which could increase accessibility of certain instruments. Imagine the people that don't have banks, they are unbanked there throughout the world and they would like assets to certain different aspects or assets, whether those could be equity, traditional equities, that could be land, that could be real estate, of course that could be also digital assets. You know the bank is very difficult, but guess what? Almost everybody, and I don't care if you're in a third world country, has a smartphone, but they got a heck of a lot more reach and a lot more people. If you have that and what can you do with a smartphone, you can create a crypto wallet. Large institutions such as the European Investment Bank have issued bonds on Ethereum, which was also the blockchain relying on digital green bonds, Moody's rated in 2023, which is a 10 million, this is in euros. Senior unsecured digital green bond issued by Societe Generale nailed it. So that's good as far as like real world assets, people are using Ethereum, it sounds like it's a great thing. Total value of tokenized real world assets on public blockchains increased to 2 billion from 1 billion the last 12 months. And Ethereum currently hosts the vast majority of it. And the question that you probably have is, why do they use Ethereum? Why? Because we've seen, I mean if you've seen, if you use Ethereum Layer 1 solutions, just how high the actual gas fees are. The thing you have to remember is this. How many of these different chains have a liquidity? How many different chains actually have the ability to do these things and are able to function and are trusted and are battle tested? There's a big difference between somebody like us who are like, I'd like an NFT of a goat or whatever it is. And I don't want to pay $23 as opposed to somebody's like, I want to buy that skyscraper for $10 billion. As far as a real world asset, I want to tokenize that. And I want it to fail because I want to lose millions of dollars. They're okay with paying a couple hundred bucks in gas fees. So there's a big difference, I think, in those people. To finish up, one factor slowly adoption tokenization is a lack of a reliable form of digital cash, which has led market dispense to settle transactions off chain or use stable coins. So again, don't fade Ethereum yet. I think there's a little bit more action left in the bag, but we will see. And of course, talking about real world assets, I remember this. Avax partnered up with JP Morgan about a month ago. This is in November 16, 2023. I thought it was interesting how they did that. And it kind of reminded me of like, well, time of real-world assets wanted to jump over to Avax. That's what JP Morgan is using. However, check this out. JP Morgan Apollo Global demonstrated a proof of concept using Avalanche Blockchain. Proof of concept connects JP Morgan's Onyx digital assets to tokenize bonds on Avalanche. Before you're like, wow, JP Morgan's, they must be really benevolent and very super nice. But remember, that is a permission chain. And then scrolling down, I didn't really know this, but Avalanche put this out and said, yeah, we're partying with JP Morgan. Leveraging layer zero labs to connect with Onyx, the permission chain, with a permissioned Avalanche Evergreen subnet, which facilitates subscription. So I would tell you, if you take a look at Avalanche and you think, well, it's doing pretty good. I will remind you about a week ago, because of inscriptions, which are essentially NFTs on the blockchain. Bitcoin has that issue right now with inscriptions. Some people hate it or ordinal. Some people love it. Doesn't really matter to me. Price goes up. But if you take a look at daily transactions, what I'm looking at, first of all, I own all this stuff. I own Polygon, Arbitrum, Cardano, Ethereum, Polygon again, Optimism, BNB, I don't own Aptos. Near Solana, I don't own a base. No one owns base. Bitcoin, Avalanche, and SWE. I own them all. So don't tell me why did you only show us a couple, because it'll make sense in a second. Here's the daily transactions. These are one of the highest. You can see that in green is Solana. And Solana's got 25, 22, 23 million as far as transactions. The next one of most recent is Avalanche at 5.86 million. Again, they pumped up massively because of the transcriptions, or inscriptions, ordinals. Near protocol is 5 million, same thing, and Ethereum only has 1.24 million transactions. But I want you to notice something. Take a look at the daily transactions. And we come down here to revenue. And you can find all this information at app.artemis.xyz, links in the description. When you have a lot of transactions, usually your revenue goes up and should be pretty high. But we can just see that actually Ethereum up here had the lowest transactions, and it has the highest fees. And the next one above that, or excuse me, below that, was Avalanche. It's funny to me, the two that had the least amount of transactions have the highest revenue. Why is that? It's because the price went up exponentially. And I want to draw your attention to a couple things. Solana and Near, that revenue stayed relatively the same, except for here, yours went up to 100,000, it wasn't too much. And over here, you've got Solana, the revenue is 145,000. Near is only 16,000. Ethereum and Avalanche are in the millions, almost four and a half, and Ethereum is at 10 million. That's a lot of revenue for not, honestly, a lot of daily transactions. And before anybody says, but Rob, Solana, I don't think that's true, because all those 25 million, there's a difference between voting and non-voting. And also, there's a problem with their failed transactions. I don't think that's true. There's another website I'm going to address you to, analytics.soulscanned.io. And what it shows you is transactions per second and success rate. See this purple line right here? This is the success rate for Solana. And you're roughly around 99.8%. Not too bad, 99.75%. Not perfect, but who is? Or what is? That's over seven days, but let's back up. What about a month? Still around the 99s. What if we take that out to three months? All right, now we're talking. And there was a little bit of a problems down here, success rate down to 95, 89%. How about all time? And we can see that beforehand, there was a lot of problems with Solana. They short up that issue, they fixed it, they patched it, and now look at their success rate. I got to tell you, I've been using those DEXs now for the last month and a half, haven't had a problem whatsoever. And then people will say, but Rob, what about the different transactions as far as voting versus non-vote transactions? You can find it right here in the very middle. Let's just break this down. Let's take over three months. See in purple, those are the vote transactions. And if you take a look at that, that's 367 million on October 28th. Hell, let's just go all the way over here. December 20th, vote transactions was 179 million, non-vote transactions 26 million. So you're looking at 205 million transactions on a layer one chain, and the revenue itself is that low? That's something. And then moving forward, Argentina just had a new president, Javier Malay, is giving an early nod to Bitcoin. Some crypto can now be using contracts. And I got to tell you, it's a pretty good thing. That means that they're implementing it in a very large country. Now, Argentina is, I believe, he was the third largest GDP in South America with 487 billion, and it dwarfs El Salvador of only 28 billion. So if Bitcoin made a huge splash in El Salvador, and what that means for all the countries surrounding it, imagine what's going to happen with Argentina. And actually, to be true to his word, new presidents of Argentina came out and did a press release. And it was a great testament to not only Bitcoin, but how you can change around a country by thoughts and ideas and moving away from the central banks and socialism. I'm going to link this in the description. You can listen to it. There are subtitles unless you speak Spanish. And it's just fantastic five minutes of pretty much the new president just ripping into everybody that screwed up his country. Anyhow, let me tell you anything about that. And then also, speaking of countries, Hong Kong, ready to accept spot crypto ETF applications. A lot of people were reporting that this was just Bitcoin only, but here's what was actually said. In addition to existing crypto futures ETFs, the SFC, which is the Securities and Futures Commission in Hong Kong, said it is prepared to accept applications for the authorization of other funds with exposure to virtual assets, including virtual asset, spot exchange, traded funds, or VA spot ETFs. Both in-kind and in-cash subscription and redemptions are allowed for SFC authorized spot VA ETFs. So what they're saying is that, of course, what the SFC wants, wants the Americans to do is to do a spot ETF, but only in cash and not in-kind, meaning that everybody who signs up for the clients, they're going to have to actually pay in cash and get paid in cash. However, they are going to have to hold Bitcoin. But of course, for the SFC here in Hong Kong, they're going to say, look, you can do in cash, you can do in crypto, we don't care, but we want you to run it through us and we want to get paid for doing that. And that's fine. I will just make a distinction that Hong Kong is not necessarily China. They say it is one country with two systems. So Hong Kong is kind of like the proving ground before it kind of spreads out to the rest of mainland China. But we'll see how it actually goes. And of course, all this great news that people will say, but Rob, what about the macro? Well, good news on that too. Fed's favorite inflation gauge shows that prices rose at 3.2%, which is less than expected. And for the TLTR, this is what it is. This is why I like CNBC, they kind of just lay it out there. The core personal consumption expenditures price index rose just 0.1% in November. It was up 3.2% from a year ago, which were close to expectations on a six-month basis though. Core PCE was up 1.9%, which is below the Fed's 12-month target rate. That would be below what they wanted to have, which is 2%, when we're going in the right direction. This is including food energy costs, so-called headline PCE actually fell 0.1% a month and was up just 2.6% from a year ago. I'm not going to bore you with the rest of the details, but look, inflation is going the right way. This could be a monster next 2024 and beyond. And then lastly, to finish up, Meld. Meld is essentially a DeFi bank built on Cardano and Avalanche, but all the nodes are currently full, 100 million Melds staked in 30 minutes. That is a good news for us. And when I say us, you have to understand that when I talk about things, this channel, I have recently owned them. I'm not doing this because of the charity of my own heart. I do this because I own these things. So when you say is Rob biased, Rob is extremely biased. So Meld, just might be something you want to take a look at, it's only two cents. And the max supply is 4 billion, total supply is 4 billion, the circulating supply is 3.6. Roughly, they got everything else out there. And the market cap itself, as of today, is below 100 million. It's only 92 million dollars. And I just went up just a little 6%. So maybe you want to look at it. If you want to learn more about Meld and what it's all about as far as the DeFi bank, I did an interview with Ken Oling and also with their CTO. And I can just tell you, here's a little taste of what you're going to get. Just take a listen to this. And then here's the last question then. Ken, I don't believe you. So here's the thing, I've had a lot of people on the show and they tell me great stuff. And then they've been lying to me. How can we verify this? So yeah, you can check out that video in the description and check out what Meld's all about and what me and Ken, the CEO, talked about. And then finally, finally, Benjamin Anas. So we had talked about this three or four days ago. The goal of this channel is to find new narratives. And this isn't a new narrative and talked about this for like over six months now. I believe that for the next bull run, it's going to be at least three things. One is going to be AI, the next one to be DEX is in the third will be Web 3 gaming. And to bring everybody over, because I'm not a big gamer, but in a lot of these games, take a substantial amount of time and understanding to get into. And of course, different setups and gaming rigs. And if you don't have like, I have a max of people who don't have max, they need a PC, but everybody's got a phone. And I like casual gaming because it's super easy. So I introduce everybody to Benji Bernanis a couple of days ago. Super simple game. It was it's been out since 2013. It was a Web 2 game had over 50 million downloads. And now they're coming into Web 3. I like playing it as far as like I'm killing time because I figure why not? I don't want to keep scrolling on Twitter all day long. So every so often, I'll work the brain and just play this little goofy game. So we're going to do a giveaway. And I said the first on the first video, I said very simple, just go to this website in the bottom left hand corner. There's the links for to download the app store on the Google store, just put into your phone and start playing. It's just a one click playing. Now let's go to the second part. Very simple. When you open up the game itself on the left hand side, you're going to see this sign in with Apple. I have an iPhone, you might have a Google Android phone, whatever it is, click on that button and then sign up. Once you sign up, it's going to bring you back to the game itself. Then I want you to click over here on the right lower side. It says more info. Once you look on that, it's going to take you to the Benjabana's website and see right there it says sign in, sign up and orange. You're going to click on that. And you're going to click on either signing with Apple or Google, whatever else you did. And it's going to automatically take you to the next screen, which is going to say, great, you're signed in. It's going to give you a game ID. All I want you to do is copy that. There's a link in the description for this tweet. And I want you just to put your game ID in there. And that game ID, we're going to randomly draw from Twitter. And we're going to give you away passes. And those passes are going to allow you to, first of all, Benjabana's is free to play. It's 100% free to play. It's super simple to play. Very simple. Very easy. But the pass itself is going to allow you to play the game and earn the token. And what I'm going to do is we're going to do a drawing and a couple of days, all that you can use your game ID, put in the tweet, and that'll be that. So look, that's it for today. There's a bit of long, a lot of information going on. If you like today's video, give it a thumbs up, subscribe and everything we talk about is time sensitive. That's it for today. Thank you so much for stopping by. I do appreciate it. And I'll see you on the next one.


What is up? A welcome back! If you're new to lasers or you've been using lasers for a while, you've heard the term curfing. And you might be asking yourself, really what is curfing and why do I care? If your project includes tabs and slots, you're making a puzzle, you're doing an inlay, or you're even trying to bend some wood, you're gonna need a good understanding of curfing and how to use it. So welcome to our mini masterclass on curfing. What is it? You've probably heard the old adage, measure twice, cut once, and you still come up short. That's probably because you cut on the line, not accounting for curfing. Curfing is the amount of material removed during a cut, whether it's with a saw blade or a laser beam. And while you can measure the width of your saw blade, you can't exactly measure the width of a laser beam. And that's not all. There are other factors that affect curfing, such as materials. Solid or a hardwood works differently than a plywood, which is different than acrylic. How about laser settings? A low high powered burn will take away more material than a high speed low power burn. So if you can't measure the width of your laser beam, we're gonna measure the width of our curfing. We're gonna go into our laser software. We'll draw a one inch square, a perfect one inch square. We'll cut it out with our laser, measure this one inch square with some calipers. Once we have our measurement, we're gonna take that measurement, subtract that from our original one inch, then we'll divide that number by two. And we're gonna divide by two because there has been a laser cut on either side of the square. So we only want the width of the curve on one side. Now that we know the size of our laser beam, we can account for curfing. So we'll go back into our laser software and adjust for it. Inside Glowforge, you'll have to adjust the design. Inside Xtool's creative space, we'll use an offset. And inside Lightburn, we'll use the curve settings inside that cut layer. For us, it's .001. So we'll just add .001 to our design for our curfing inside Lightburn. And we'll cut that one more time. We have our perfect one inch square, which means we have confirmed our curf. Our curf is .001 inch. If I take this new square and put it in the original hole, it's a much tighter fit. It will not fall out. And if I try to take the original square and put it in the new hole, it doesn't fit. I can't really get it in there. Can't see an even tighter fit. What if you don't have calipers or hate math? Garrett has created a set of tools and templates that you can use to calculate your curfing or calculate your image setting. So if I have a laser board and I have our old template here, we can figure out which size our laser board is. This one fits loosely. This one's fits loosely right here. This one fits perfectly. And believe it or not, this one actually measures .25. But what if I make this cut? You know you're gonna have some play in there. I may want to put this at something like .249. Now that fits snugly. That's what I want to set our image to for our tabs and slot curfing. Puzzles and inlays are a little bit different. With the tabs and slats, you're mainly worried about the material thickness. With inlays and puzzles, you're more worried about how it fits together, how one part may fit into the other and you're looking at gaps in the curved areas. Now if you follow our channel, you know we do a lot of door rounds and sometimes we'll do a puzzle piece door round. Now for a door round, you're gonna want a nice tight fit so it doesn't turn into a wind chime. For puzzles and inlays, we've created a puzzle piece template. Here we've cut a puzzle piece with zero curfing. You can see that this is very loose. You can see a gap in the wood and it's not gonna hold. Now that's great if you're doing a kids puzzle, but if you're doing something with inlays, then you're definitely gonna want a tighter curf here. So here with this one with a .001 curfing on either side, we get a nice snug fit. You can see here that these aren't coming apart easily. They have a nice snug fit and this is gonna be great, especially if you're doing different types of woods such as maples inlaid with cherry.  This you can cut on your different materials and test the fit. When you start getting up to the 2.002, the fit is tight enough that once I get it together, I don't think I'll be able to get it apart. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if we start subtracting from the curf or doing an inward curf, there's more play and it becomes looser. With these templates, you can mix and match and find what works in each of the different settings. So if I can do a negative one and a positive two, I still get a pretty good fit. Next up, we're gonna bend wood, also known as a living hinge. We're gonna use the same method by removing material. We can create a bend in our wood. We downloaded a bunch of patterns from Etsy from our friends over at Dottie Design Co. To demonstrate the different ways that you can cut patterns and bend wood. Now, this is a straight line pattern and the tighter the cuts, the more flexible the wood is going to be. At 1.75, this wood has more of a bend to it. At 2.5, you'll see there's less of a bend and then at 4.0, there's just a slight bend. And there are so many different patterns out there. This is a bowling hinge and this will allow us to bend our eighth inch birch. This is a fabric hinge. The fabric hinges will allow you to bend in multiple directions, not just up and down, but also a little bit side to side. This also works for multiple thicknesses. Here we have quarter inch MDF and with the tighter pattern, we can get more of a bend. Here's another example of the more material removed, the larger the bend. This one is a brick pattern and you can really bend this one as well. This is going to give you a lot of curve. There are lots of projects where you can use bendable wood. You can make things like lampshades, jewelry, earrings, bracelets. You can make boxes. You can add corners and round corners on different types of projects. There are so many different fun things that you could do that you may not have considered where you can bend the wood to give your project a whole new look. And you can join us over on Patreon for more advanced techniques. If you wanted to create a project with thicker materials like this one, then you'll need to consider things like different lenses, different focal heights, your air pressure and flow. All of these can affect your curving. With what you've learned in today's mini masterclass, you'll be curving like a pro.