And listening and listen, then
it's an urgent thing. It's an urgent thing in time
and it's an urgent thing in importance. Not only did he spring in quickly,
but he sprang in trembling and he fell down before the apostles. What is this telling us? He was
humbled by what he was experiencing, what he was hearing and what
he was seeing. He was brought to the feet of Christ, begging
for mercy. Lord, have mercy upon me. He
was humbled, reminded of that publican and Pharisee. Pharisee
prayed thus unto himself, God, I thank thee that I'm not like
other men. Oh, I fast twice a week. I'm certainly not like that publican
over there. And the publican would not so
much as look up, but smote himself on the breast and said, God have
mercy upon me. I'm the sinner. I'm the one that
needs mercy. Now, Lord said, which one of
those went home justified? Here's a picture of every sinner's
salvation. God causes us to see, you know
what? Everything I ever thought about
myself, everything I ever thought about God, everything I ever
thought about salvation, didn't need to be tweaked. It needed to be flushed. I count
all things now but dung that I might know Him. I didn't
know what it meant to be a sinner until the Lord sent the light
and opened the prison doors and shut me up to His Word. Certainly didn't know about the
successful work of the Lord Jesus Christ actually accomplishing
the salvation of His people and justifying them before God. by
the sacrifice of himself. Didn't know anything really about
faith. My faith was in my faith. It wasn't in Christ as the object
of my faith. Verse 30, and he brought them out and he
said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? Is there any more important question
for a sinner to ask? Now this question is different
from the question that the self-righteous religionists ask when they say,
what work can we work to do the works of God? What can we do? to successfully accomplish the
work of God. This is different than the skeptical
question that Pilate asked, and many, many people that you know
and I know ask this question. Truth? Truth? What is truth? Don't you know
that everything is relative? There are no absolutes. Everybody's
got a little truth here and a little truth there, and you're telling
me that you have the truth? The one and only truth? And that
your gospel is the only gospel? Yep. And the scoffer will say,
truth? You're just being proud. What
makes your beloved better than my beloved? This is not like
that question. And this is not like the question
of those Pharisees who were threatened by our Lord when they said, by
what authority doest thou these things? You've heard that question
asked, haven't you? By what authority do you take
that position? By what authority do you say
those things? And we say without apology, by
the authority of God's word. Now, this was a sincere, child of God who wanted to know
what it meant to be saved. What do the religionists talk
about? They talk about getting saved, don't they? What's the
difference between getting saved and being saved? Well, being
saved has a thing to do with our being, doesn't it? And getting
saved is like, you know, kind of catching a cold. You've got
the possession of something. You get something as a possession
or you are something as a being. Salvation is not something you
possess. You put it in your pocket and carry it around with you
or stick it up on the shelf when you don't need it. The salvation
is a work of grace in the heart and changes our being. changes us from being estranged
from God, from being lost to knowing God and being saved. It changes us from being nothing
but sinful to being sanctified and justified and glorified in
the very presence of God. All things become new. Everything
becomes new. That's what this Philippian jailor
was interested in. What must I do to be saved? And
if I'm going to be saved, it's got to happen outside of me. It's not something I can go and
grab hold of. It's somebody outside of me is
gonna have to do something for me to be saved. Our Lord said, it is easier for
a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for rich
man to enter into the kingdom of God. Yes, that can be related to material
wealth if a man finds all his hope and purpose in his material things. God said, what does it profit
a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? But the
spiritual application of that is that all prison keepers, all
lost men, are rich in their own righteousness. That's what our
Lord meant when he said, light has come into the world, but
men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are
evil. Their righteousness that they're holding onto. He wasn't
just talking about people that are engaged in shameful behavior. He's talking about the self-righteousness
of all men. And the gospel declares everything
you and I have ever done as being evil. And men don't wanna hear
that. They don't wanna hear that. So
they just turn the light off or get out of the light. And the disciples said, exceedingly
amazed, they said to the Lord, who then can be saved? And our Lord said, with men,
it is impossible. It's impossible for a man to
see himself as a sinner. That's a work of grace in the
heart. That's a miracle for a person to be brought to the place of
believing that they are a sinner and that everything about them
is sinful in the very sight of God. With man, it is impossible. to become poor and needy. All men left to themselves will
be rich and self-sufficient." Then he goes on to say, but with
God, all things are possible. God can make you a sinner. Say,
well, I don't feel like a sinner. God says you are. God says you are, and faith says
to what God says, amen. Amen. Turn with me to 2 Samuel chapter
22. 2 Samuel chapter 22. Look with me at verse three. What must I do to be saved? We're talking about
the being of salvation. Not the getting of it or the
having of it, but the being of it. That's what he wanted to
know. Verse three of 2 Samuel chapter
22. The God of my rock in him will
I trust. He is my shield and the horn
of my salvation, my high tower and my refuge, my savior. Thou savest me from violence. I will call on the Lord who is
worthy to be praised. So shall I be. be saved from mine enemy. Lord, if I'm gonna be saved,
you're gonna have to save me. David said in Psalm 80 verse
three, matter of fact, he says this four times in Psalm 80.
He says, turn us, oh God, and cause thy face to shine upon
us and we shall be saved. Salvation is a matter of being. That's why men aren't interested
in it. You know, if they could just
stick it in their pocket and walk off with it and pull it
out when they needed it, well, that's one thing. But you're
telling me that Christ is going to be in me and that I am going
to be in him and that he's gonna have complete authority and control
of my life? I'm not interested in that. Just
give me $3 worth of God, please, and that'll be sufficient to
get me by. Isn't that? To die to myself and be made
alive unto God, to have him reigning sovereign? No, what does the
natural man say? We will not have that man reign over us. Salvation is a matter of being. What must I do to be saved? Isaiah 45 verse 17 says, Israel
shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation and
he shall not be ashamed nor confounded. You see, When the Lord gives
you Christ and puts you in Christ and Christ in you, you're not
ashamed. He wasn't ashamed. What he brought
to this, this was the man who probably beat Paul and Silas. He was the one that put the stripes
on them. And now what does he do? He brings
them into their home and he washes and binds up their wounds. And
then he publicly confesses, that he believes on God by being baptized. Look down with me, if you will.
In verse 31, and they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe,
we're back in our text in Acts 16. Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's why I wanted to open this
message with a very simple illustration about resting the weight of your
body on that pew. You believed on that pew when
you sat down. Now, I know this is a spiritual
work of grace, but you are resting every bit of your being, every
part of your body and soul on the Lord Jesus Christ. You believe
that he's Lord. You believe that he's God. You
believe that he has the right to have mercy upon whom he will
have mercy. You believe that He's omnipotent,
He's all-powerful, He's sovereign, He's immutable. I'll say this
again. I've said it to you before. If
you really believe that Jesus Christ is God and all that's
implied by that, you're a believer. You're a believer. You believe He's God. How could
He not be successful if He's not God? I mean, if he's, if
he's God, how could he not be successful? Oh, you believe that he's reigning
at the right hand of God almighty right now. And that he's your
advocate before God. If you have an advocate, he's
going to have to be it. You're resting your hope on him.
You believe that he's Jesus. That's what Paul says. Believe
on the Lord Jesus. Jehovah saves. You believe that
all the hope of your salvation is on what he did and that you
have no contribution to make to it. You believe that. And
we're not talking about having a feeling or religion. I mean,
if God gives us those things, those things come and go. I'm
talking about what do you believe? What do you, who do you believe?
Paul said, I know whom I have believed and I'm persuaded that
he is able. I'm persuaded that he is able
to keep that, which I've committed unto him. I've got all my eggs
in one basket. I'm not diversifying my investments. so that at the end of the day,
if I lose something here, I'll gain something there and I'll
make a profit. No, no, if Christ doesn't save
me, I won't be saved. He's everything in my salvation. He's answering the question,
what must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the Christ. The Messiah,
the anointed one, the one sent in the full power of the Spirit
of God to save his people. That's why he came into the world. At Ethiopian eunuch, ask Philip. What doth hinder me to be baptized? And what did Philip say? If thou
believest with all thine heart. And what's it mean to believe
with all of your heart? Truth is, you and I have never done
anything with all of our heart. I mean, we, you know, people
talk about 110%. We don't even come close to 100% with
most of what we do, do we? But with a new heart, With that
new nature that God gives us in our new being, it's resting
all its hope on Christ. It's got no place else to go.
If thou believe us with all thine heart, thou mayest. And what
did that Ethiopian eunuch say? I believe that Jesus Christ is
God. I believe he's a son of God.
I believe that He's the self-existent creator and sustainer of the
universe. I believe that He's never changed. He's the same
yesterday, today, and forever. And the only reason I'm not consumed
is because He's immutable. He changes not. He's all-powerful. He's sovereign. You see, child
of God, of all the things that you do believe, you don't believe
anything like you believe on Him, do you? You don't believe in that pew
like you believe on him. You don't believe in yourself.
You don't believe in it. We have a lot of things we believe, but
we don't believe anything like we believe on him. God gives
you Christ. Your whole being is changed.
You become a new creature. Old things have passed away,
and yea, all things have become new. Christ is your all and he's
in all. Remember that conversation our
Lord had with Martha in John chapter 11, when Martha, said
lord i know my brother will rise in the resurrection our lord
said i am the resurrection martha he that believeth in me though
he die yet shall he live and he that liveth and believeth
in me shall never die believest thou this and what did martha
say yay lord i believe that thou art the christ that should come
into the world i do believe that My faith is, it wavers, but it's
on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice this Ethiopian eunuch
didn't say, I believe I'm saved. That kind of comes and goes,
doesn't it, child of God? Your assurance of salvation comes
and goes. He didn't say, I believe I'm
one of God's elect. He didn't say, I believe Christ
died for me. He was saying, I believe that
all the hope of my salvation is in him and I'm resting everything
on him. That's why the scripture says
that we look unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our
faith. Amen. Now, I want to close this
message with a very important point. If there was ever a message that
I've ever preached that I want to be crystal clear every message,
but if there's ever one message, it's the one I preached last
Sunday on justification. To be justified means that we
are perfect in the sight of God. It means the law has no claim
on us. And in my message last week, I made the point that God
himself is the source of all of our justification, that grace
itself is the supply of all of our justification, that all the
ground of our justification is in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ, who justified us in time. He justified us in time on Calvary's
cross. That's why the scripture says
in Romans chapter four, verse 25, he was offered up for our
offenses and raised again because of our justification when the
Lord Jesus Christ bowed his mighty head on Calvary's cross and cried,
it is finished. God said, I'm satisfied. And
God's people in time were justified in eternity. We've always been
justified. The Lord Jesus Christ entered
into a covenant promise with his father to be the surety of
his people. And the scripture refers to Christ
Jesus the Lord as the lamb slain before the foundation of the
world. And God almighty has never seen any of his elect other than
justified. They've always been justified.
They've always been perfect, innocent with God. Turn to me, we're talking about
faith, and so this is a very important point that I wanna
make. Turn to me to Romans chapter four, Romans chapter five, because
the last point that I made last Sunday, if you remember, is that
faith is the means to justification. And if by that you understood
that in order for me to be justified, I have to have faith, that is
not what I meant. Faith is the means to enjoying
the benefits of justification. Faith itself, your faith and
my faith, has nothing to do with justification. It is the faith of the Lord Jesus
Christ that justified his people. It is his faithfulness So what do we do with this passage
of scripture that seems to imply that faith itself is the means
to justification? Well, let's look at it. Look
at Romans chapter four, verse 25. He was delivered for our
offenses. He bore our sins in his body
upon Calvary's cross and satisfied the justice of God. He put all
those sins away. by himself, and God raised him
again. And that little preposition F-O-R
can be better understood as the word because. It is often translated
because in the original language. And so he was offered up for
our offenses and raised again because of our justification.
God rewarded him. by raising him from the dead
because God was satisfied and God's people in time were justified. Now look at the next verse, and
I want to preface what I'm going to say by telling you once again,
that much of the punctuations in the Bible, matter of fact,
all of them, are added by the translators. We believe God's word is inspired
and infallible, but sometimes we have to go to the original
language to properly understand a verse of scripture. And there's
a little comma that needs to be moved in chapter five, verse
one. Therefore, Being justified. Being justified. That's already
done. Having been justified. Comma. By faith, we have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ. You see the difference in that?
We're not justified by faith. This message is about the evidence
of salvation. And faith is the evidence of
salvation, and it is the means to enjoying the benefits of justification. But we're not justified by faith.
We're justified by the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore,
being justified, comma, by faith, we have peace with God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. How do we know we've been justified?
By faith. My faith. What is faith? It's trusting Christ alone for
all your salvation, not looking to yourself for anything. You believe that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God, the sovereign, self-existent, successful Savior
of sinners. He's your substitute. He's your
sin bearer. He's your surety before God,
which means that he's everything in your salvation. And you believe
that. You believe on him. By faith, we have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ, having been justified. Our heavenly father, thank you
for your word. Bless it to the hearts of your
people. Call us, Lord, out of the prisons of our own imagination
and reveal to us the truth of Christ. For it's in His name
we pray, amen. 143, let's stand together, number
143. ? This King, your Lord and King
adored ? ? Rejoice, do thanks and sing ? ? And triumph evermore
? ? Lift up your heart ? ? Lift up your voice ? ? Rejoice again
I say ? To save your brains The God of
truth and love When He encouraged our state He took His seat above
Lift up your heart Lift up your voice Rejoice again I say ? Cannot fail, he rules over death
? ? The keys of death and hell are to our Jesus' gift ? ? Lift
up your hearts, lift up your voice ? ? Rejoice again, Christ
is born ? lift up your heart Rejoice again, I say rejoice!