Turn to John Chapter 8, if you
want to turn your Bibles, please. I've entitled today's message,
No Condemnation. This is one of those texts of
scripture, which I believe are one of my favorites and certainly,
I think one of the most important because it is my favorite text
of scripture in all the Bible. It's incredible that According
to people who know this, I don't know this firsthand, but I've
been told that this chapter in the Bible, or this account at
least, was not in what some considered the original scripture. They
were foolish enough to say that because God put it here. And
I'm glad he did, don't you? Aren't you? John chapter 8, I
want to read through the first 12 verses. And I know that you're
familiar with this, but I can't stop thinking about these words
of scripture. So I want to look at this. And when we look at this, there's
many, many things. We could spend weeks on this
scripture. I don't intend to. I wanted to look at this with
you. There's many different levels in here. I will probably only
be able to allude to some of them, but I want you not to miss
the most important part here. Jesus told this woman, neither
do I condemn thee. So that's the climactic conclusion
that is drawn and everything else in here builds up to that.
Notice in verse one, Jesus had been at the feast. The Jews had
been at the feast. Everyone went home. And then
it says, Jesus went up or went unto the Mount of Olives. And
I just was thinking about this. I'm sure that there was no tent
there, no hotel there, no home there. The Lord went to the mountain
because it was going to, the night was coming. His disciples
had obviously been following him and they probably were with
him. And then it says in verse 2,
early in the morning, he came again into the temple. And all
the people came to him. And he sat down and he taught
them. Now the temple, what is the temple? A temple is where God is with
his people. And what is the temple in that
sense? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. God
manifest in the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ. The word was
made flesh and tabernacled amongst us. But it's not only the Lord
in his physical body, but it's the Lord in his people. And that
is the temple God in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God
dwelling in his people. So here, what we have is the
physical temple representing that. And the one who comes early
in the morning to this temple is the Lord Jesus. He's the master. The people in those days would
call their teachers rabbi or master. Here the Lord told his
disciples a little later in John 13, you call me master and Lord
and you say, well, for so I am. He's the master. So the master
now is coming to his temple. And He's coming publicly. It's
very important we understand this. God coming publicly to
His people here. And all the people come to Him.
This is the way the Gospel is given. The Gospel is sent out
and draws sinners to Christ. We meet with Him there in in
the place where he meets with his people, which is in the Lord
Jesus Christ from his word by his spirit dwelling in us. So
Christ now is coming as the master teacher. And the circumstances
are not random. They're not accidental. They're on purpose. Christ is
setting up an object lesson here by what follows. And this is
actually most incredible. that the Lord Jesus Christ, the
God of glory, the Lord of heaven and earth is coming to his people
here in this physical temple in order to teach us in our heart
that he came in the flesh in order to teach this lesson. It's
a lesson beyond words to describe the importance of it and the
dearness of it to us, especially dear to me, a sinner. And so
he says he sat down and he taught them. To sit down is a place
of authority, it's a place of rule, and it is a place of finished
work. The Lord Jesus Christ, the master,
the God of glory come from heaven sitting in this place teaching
his people. And what happens? Well, the lesson
is set up because it says the scribes and the Pharisees brought
to him a woman. taken in adultery, and when they
had set her in the midst, they said to him, Master, this woman
was taken in adultery in the very act. And now Moses in the
law commanded us that such should be stoned, but what sayest thou? And this they said, tempting
him, that they might have to accuse him, but Jesus stooped
down as though he heard them not. All right. So what happened
here? Well, as I said, the master,
the teacher, the Lord of Glory is coming to his people, and
he's going to teach us something, and he sets it up, and the circumstances
are such that the lesson will come in the form of his enemies
accusing a woman. His enemies are accusing a woman,
and she was guilty, and she came in here unwillingly, but was
brought to the Lord by the enemies of Christ, who sought through
her to discredit and to bring shame on the Lord Jesus Christ. Because they thought, they knew
that He was merciful, and that he would show mercy to this woman.
And so they brought her and they brought the law of God and they
thought, we now have him. We have a guilty woman and he
will try to keep from condemning her. And we have the law of God
that requires her in her guilt to be stoned. And how can he
do anything except require this? He has two choices. Either stone
this woman, as the law says, and show no mercy to her, as
the law requires, or else, they thought, he will let her go and
prove that he is not true to Moses, not true to God's law,
and therefore they can discredit him before the people, and they
have him. They were seeking to destroy
Christ through the woman, a guilty woman, a woman who had nothing
to say because she was guilty. The law condemned her and she
was brought in the presence of this public setting here. And
this is the very lesson which the Lord Jesus is going to teach.
He brings her with her accusers, Christ himself and the law. There's
four people here. There's the woman guilty and
silent before the law of God. There are the accusers who hold
the law in order to discredit Christ and bring him, to prove
him false, to prove him to be a sinner, to be a compromiser.
And so there's the woman, there are the accusers, there's the
law of God, and then there's the Lord Jesus Christ. You see
that? These four entities here. Christ,
the woman, the law, and the enemies. But keep in mind that the Lord
Jesus is doing this in public. He's not trying to do this somewhere
out in the desert where no one can see. He's not going to whisper
something to her. He's going to tell her and tell
her publicly and set it forth so no one can ever say that it
was not done openly. And that's very important here.
And so the accusers of this woman bring the law to accuse the woman
and say, look, Moses said in the law that such a woman should
be stoned. But what sayest thou? They didn't
know what he was going to say. And every time the Pharisees
and the scribes and the rulers of the people, the elders and
the chief priests asked Jesus a question, they did not know
what he was going to say. Because when he spoke, he spoke
the wisdom of God. When he spoke, he spoke the truth
of God. He spoke the righteous judgment
of God and no man knew what he was going to say. And here's
the, there are really three things here that are maybe four or five
things that are incredible here. First of all, There's the infinite
mystery of God, the secret of God that's revealed in the coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ. God manifests in the flesh. And secondly, there's this problem,
this eternal problem that God alone can solve. How can God
be true to his word, the law of God, and yet clear this woman
who obviously is guilty before the law? How can these things
be reconciled? And so that's the second thing
here. That's an infinite mystery revealed by God in this text
of scripture. And the Lord Jesus is going to
do that here. He goes on in verse 7, well,
actually in verse 6, I haven't read that. It says, they said
this, bringing the woman, bringing the law, accusing him, saying,
Moses said to condemn her, Moses said to stone her, but what do
you say? And the Lord Jesus, in all the
wisdom of God, by the Spirit of God, He does the following,
they said this tempting him that they might have to accuse him.
But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground
as though he heard them not. Now here's the second thing I
want you to see here. Well, the third thing actually.
These men who brought a guilty woman into the presence of Christ,
knowing she was guilty because they caught her in the act. And
she obviously knew her own guilt and was silent, had nothing to
say. No defense. No defense. Her accusers and
the law of God. She's doomed. And yet the Lord,
in answer to her accusers, what does He say? Nothing. Nothing. Now think about that. How often do we find ourselves
tempted to be critical of other people and to judge them by our
own standards? Even God's standard. And yet
the Lord teaches us, if we judge another person, a brother, If
we hold them to the judgment, then we put ourselves in the
place of the law giver and the judge. Because there's only one
who can judge, only one knows the hearts of men, and only one
can reconcile the sin which is against God, and that's God himself. God Himself is the judge and
the Lord Jesus Christ is clearly the judge here. And so what does
He do to those who accuse this woman who was guilty and silent
as a guilty woman and condemned really by the law? What does
He do? He tells them nothing. And there
is nothing worse in all of eternity than that the Lord Jesus Christ
would not speak to you and to me. There's nothing worse. And
so here these men are, they bring the law, they have God's word,
and they have a guilty woman, and they, like Jesus had said
in the Sermon on the Mount, they had a log in their eye, and they're
looking at the speck in this woman's eye. And they're saying,
yeah, you need to take the law out and you need to condemn her.
Because if you don't, then we can condemn you. That's what
they were thinking. And the Lord Jesus answers them,
nothing. And why? Why did he not answer
them? They did not know God. They did
not know his father. They did not know God. Remember
what God says? Moses said, Lord, show me your
glory. And what did the Lord say? This
is my glory. I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy. And I will have compassion on
whom I will have compassion. And then he says, he sets forth
in Exodus 34, all of his glory before him, before Moses. And
he says it in these words in Exodus 34 and verse six, he says,
And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed, the Lord,
the Lord God, notice, here's his glory, merciful and gracious,
long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy
for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and
will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children and the children's children unto
the third and fourth generation. You see, that's what the glory
of God is, forgiveness of sins. It says in Micah 7, He delights
in mercy. And in Psalm 130, he says, O
Lord, if you would mark iniquities, who could stand? But there is
forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. And Jesus told
the Pharisees and the scribes, you tithe mint and rue and cumin
and all kinds of things, but you've passed over the weightier
matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and the love of God. And
so these men did not know God. They didn't know God. And the
reason we know that is because they attacked the Lord of glory,
the one who alone who forgives sinners and shows mercy to sinners. And they had no mercy to this
woman. They were willing to stone this woman right there in the
presence of Christ in the temple. Cruel, merciless men. because
they had no need for mercy, they saw no need for mercy, they didn't
know God in His mercy and in His grace. And so what did they
do? They had their standard. Here
it is. It's the law. We're going to bring it in. We're
not guilty. We can be justified by this law. And so they bring
it in to condemn her because they saw nothing in their own
eye. They saw the dirt in her eye. They were bringing her to
the Lord to condemn her. They made their standard God's
law, and they made themselves judges, and they became both
lawgivers and judges in judging the woman. What should we do
then? Should we not condemn sinners?
God's word condemns sinners. We don't have to hold men's feet
to the fire, as it were. We just declare the gospel to
them. The Lord himself will condemn them, as we're going to see here.
We let God take vengeance. We let God be the judge. We cannot
see the hearts of men. Samuel was told to go find the
anointed of the Lord. He went to Jesse's sons and he
looked at each one. Is this it? Is this him? Is this
the one? No, no. God does not look as
man sees. He looks at the heart. We don't
see as God sees, do we? We don't know how God judges. How can we reconcile God's law,
his word, in our own sinful condition without condemning ourselves?
We can't. And what do we do then? Well,
we have to come to the Lord Jesus. We have to come to him and say,
Lord, you be the judge. And find mercy. Find mercy. You who can do the impossible,
find mercy for me. That's it, isn't it? Lord. You can do the impossible. I
am guilty. I have no defense. I have nothing
to say. I have lawful accusers. Your
own word condemns me. What do I do? Appeal to the judge. Go to the judge. These men were
totally ignorant of God, you see. They did what Judas did. He went out and hanged himself.
because he had no concept of mercy with God. He didn't think
God's mercy was big enough. He thought his own righteousness
had to keep him out of hell. He never pleaded with Christ
for mercy. He didn't know the Lord of glory,
just like Cain. My punishment is greater than
I can bear. Oh, yes it is. But God's mercy
in Christ is greater than that. So they brought the law. What
is the law anyway? Well, the law is what God requires
of me and you. The law requires our obedience. And for our disobedience, the
law requires our judgment. The law requires that of us.
And yet, here, the Lord Jesus Christ does not condemn this
woman. So what does he do? He stoops
down. He ignores them, as it were. He's going to silence them. He's going to send them out in
silence. But in order to do that, he stoops
down and with his finger, he writes on the ground. John Calvin
said he was just ignoring them, so he was scribbling as if he
had nothing to do except scribble on the ground. That's a foolish
thing to say. I'm sorry, John Calvin, but that
was wrong. The Lord had a purpose in writing.
He didn't just write gobbledygook on the ground. He wrote something
in words. The word was made flesh and dwelt
among us, and he wrote on the ground." You think he wrote nothing?
No. He did it to shame them. He did it to silence them. And
so it had an effect on them. Notice, when they continued asking
him, because it's like he's writing, and they're badgering him, as
he's writing, he lifted up himself and he said to them, Here it
is, he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone
at her. And how often have I wanted to
cast stones at people? I see the sin and it makes me
angry because they're sinners and I'm not that and I want to
stone them. There's something about us that
has a lust to judge others. And James said it this way in
James chapter four, he says, Speak not evil one of another,
brethren. He that speaks evil of his brethren,
judges his brethren, speaks evil of the law, and judges the law.
Because we set a standard out, we hold people to our standard,
we sit in the place of lawgiver, and we make our judgments. That's
what he's saying. But if you judge the law, thou
art not a doer, but a judge of the law. There's one lawgiver
who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you that judges another?
That's what he's saying. You lust to judge others. By
nature, naturally, we have a desire and envy against others. We want
to put others down so that we might stand on their head, having
judged them. And in this case, the scribes
and Pharisees want to destroy the Lord Jesus Christ by showing
him to be a compromiser. He won't even keep the law. He
won't even condemn this woman when she's guilty, obviously
guilty. He won't do that. He's got to
be false. He can't be just. He can't be righteous. But here
he lifts himself up and he says, whoever is without sin among
you, let him first cast a stone at her. And this is what happened
when he said that. His word penetrated and divided
between their soul and their spirit and their heart and exposed
the very intents of their heart and this is what happened. It
says, he again stooped down and wrote on the ground, and when
they heard it, notice, being convicted by their conscience,
they went out one by one, beginning at the eldest unto the last.
So this is what happened. Christ brought, by what he wrote
on the ground and by what he said, he brought to bear on their
conscience the voice of their conscience so that it condemned
them. And this is what happens in judgment. God brings our own words and
our own actions and our own motives and our own intents to bear,
to witness against us, and our own conscience sends us out. That's judgment. That's the silence
of God against us. And that separates us from him,
doesn't it? That that was more effective
than stoning them to leave them with a guilty conscience and
no word of mercy. And that's the most fearful thing.
Have you ever noticed that in the world, in psychology, they
tell you guilt is the most afflicting thing. It brings us to disease
in our body. It brings us to depression and
to hatred and to murder and to self-destruction and suicide.
That's what guilt does. How much we need God's mercy
to deliver us from our sin against God. But they didn't see their
sin until he brought this condemning silence to them. If you have
no sin, then you can condemn her. Otherwise, they went out. They went out. And he stooped
down again. Now the first time the Lord stooped,
it had this effect. It drove them out. It shut their
mouths. As Brad read in Romans chapter
3, such a powerful argument God makes through the Apostle Paul
to us, against us. He says in Romans chapter 3,
Now, we know that what things so ever the law sayeth, whatever
God's law, whatever the Bible says that requires of us, either
for obedience or for punishment, whatever the law says, it says
to them who are under the law, that's us, that every mouth may
be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, by our own obedience to God's requirements, there shall
no flesh be justified in his sight. And so they were sent
out. Before Christ, they could not be justified. For by the
law is what? The knowledge of sin. So what did the Lord Jesus write
on the ground? He wrote a condemning law. It was the finger of God who
first wrote on the tables of stone and gave them to Moses.
And what happened? Moses went out from the presence
of the Lord and he saw the children of Israel dancing and making
themselves vile, worshiping a calf, and he took the two tables of
stone and threw them down and they were broken. Because they
had broken the law even before they received it. And then He
goes down to the mountain, he goes back up, and God writes
the second time on those two tables. And then what does the
Lord say to do? Moses, you take those two tables
and you put them where? In the ark. The ark. And the ark was that place where
God met with sinners. On the top of it was a mercy
seat. And the ark represented the Lord Jesus Christ in human
nature. In his heart it was to do the
will of God. Thy law is within my heart. And on that mercy seat was the
blood that would be sprinkled to make propitiation, to remove
our sin, to make satisfaction to God, to earn God's favor for
us by the blood sprinkled So the first stoop was the first
writing of the law, and the second stoop was the Lord Jesus Christ
coming in our nature, humbling himself, made under the law in
order to take all that the law required of us for obedience
and for the punishment of our sins and bear it all himself. He accomplished it, and then
he laid his life down as a sinner, bearing our sins and shedding
his blood. And that blood, God looks upon
it and says, absolutely, that obedience and shedding his blood
is the righteousness of God. That's what he's talking about
in Romans 3. When we were guilty, when we
could not keep the law, and that's our case even now, God sent his
own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned
sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us. All right, so Jesus stooped the
second time. And then in verse nine, and then
they which heard it, be convicted by their conscience, went out
one by one, beginning at the eldest, even to the last, and
Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst.
All right, this is it now. Here's the judge, here's the
condemning law, and the accusers are silenced and set out. And here the Lord Jesus Christ
is with this woman. And here's another major mystery. A secret revealed by God that
to sinners, to men, to Gentiles, and to Jews too, the Lord would
preach the gospel of His grace. And here, listen now, in the
temple, in public, Christ with this woman, love covers a multitude
of sin. And what does the Lord Jesus
Christ do for the woman? In public, in the temple, having
sent and silenced her enemies out, what does he do? He had
stooped down the first time, had given the law, he stooped
the second time signifying what he would do to fulfill the law
in his own blood and his own obedience for his people. And
he looks to the woman who was standing there in all of this
public onlooking crowd in verse 10. And Jesus had lifted up himself
and saw none but the woman. He said to the woman, he said
to her, woman, where are those thine accusers? Has no man condemned
thee? When the gospel comes to us and
presents to us the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, He applies
that work to us. He gives us faith. He gives us
life to know and be persuaded and to stand upon this. Has no one condemned you in light
of Christ's stoop? In light of the fact that the
law giver and the judge himself stooped to bear the obedience
required and fulfill it and then offer his blood to remove your
sins and placate and bring God's favor to you through that blood?
Is there no one here to condemn you? So that her conscience is
thinking. And she has been silent, had
nothing to say before her judge. And now the advocate of his people
speaks to her. Woman, is there no one here to
condemn you? And she said, no man, Lord. No man, Lord. And then him being
the only one left, The Lord of Glory, who knows all things,
who knows, has the wisdom that was behind giving the law, knows
the hearts of men, knows the holiness of God, and somehow,
out of His wisdom and grace and mercy and power, and his own
obedience and his humility and his humiliation, he says, based
on that stoop, on that coming to his temple for his people,
fulfilling that law, bearing their iniquities, he says, neither
do I condemn thee. That's the word of justification,
isn't it? Through the gospel is preached
to us the forgiveness of sins. Look at Acts chapter 13. Paul
the Apostle was preaching to these Jews and he was telling
them in Acts chapter 13. I want you to just look at a
couple of verses there. In Acts chapter 13. I'm going
to highlight a couple of verses without reading the whole account.
Look at his, he says in verse 23, he says, of this man's seed,
of David's seed, hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel
a Savior Jesus, you see that? And then in verse 26, men and
brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, whosoever among you
fears God, to you is the word of this salvation sent. You see that in verse 26? And
then look at verse 32, and we declare unto you glad tidings,
glad tidings. How that the promise, this was
promised before, made to the fathers, God fulfilled the same
unto us, their children, in that he has done what? Like Jesus,
after he stooped the second time, he raised up Jesus again. As it is written in the second
Psalm, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. And
then he goes on in verse 34, and as concerning that he raised
him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption,
he said, on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of
David. Now look at verse 38. Here's
the conclusion of Paul's sermon. Be it known to you, therefore,
men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you
what? The forgiveness of sins. And by him, all that believe
are justified from all things from which the law could not
be, you could not be justified by the law of Moses. By him,
you're justified from all things you could not be justified by
the law of Moses. Isn't that what he told the woman?
This is what he said. And so look at verse, Verse 46, then Paul and Barnabas
wax bold to the Jews who wouldn't hear him. They were contradicting.
He says, it was necessary that the word of God should first
have been spoken to you. But seeing you put it from you
and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, we turn
to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded
us, saying, I have set thee, Christ, to be a light of the
Gentiles, that thou should be for salvation unto the ends of
the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this,
they were glad. And they glorified the word of
the Lord and as many as were ordained to eternal life believe. You see that? This is the gospel. This is what Brad read to us
in Romans chapter 4. Look at Romans chapter 3, I mean.
Romans 3. If you have no other place in
your Bible with a bookmark in it or yellow highlighting, do
it here in Romans chapter three. The gospel so clearly laid out
after such a condemning prosecution against us as sinners. He says
in verse 20, by the deeds of the law, By your own obedience, by your
own suffering, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight,
for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now, not your righteousness,
but the righteousness of God. This is the good news. The righteousness
of God is made known, is manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets, that was the message. It wasn't about your obedience,
it was about Christ's obedience, even the righteousness of God
by faith of Jesus Christ, His faith, His obedience, unto all
and upon all them that believe. There's no difference, all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. But notice, being
justified. declared by God in the presence
of the public angels in the onlooking universe, even with the law hanging
there, being justified freely by His grace, on what ground?
Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. It's His blood
that set us free from the condemning law, the curse of the law, and
the requirements of the law, because He fulfilled them for
us Verse 25, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation, the
law put into the ark, the blood sprinkled, where the law was
not kept, but kept in Christ and our sins taken away by that
blood sprinkled. God has set him forth publicly
to be, through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness,
for the remission of our sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God. That's the gospel. That's what
the Lord Jesus said to this woman. Where are your accusers? There's
no man, Lord, neither do I condemn thee. That's the message of the
gospel. God, not only in the fulfillment
of his eternal counsels, his secret revealed himself in the
person of his son when he came into the world in the incarnation,
but then he justified him in the spirit. Christ speaks no
condemnation and he fulfilled the law. And the Lord raised
him from the dead, proving his word was true. And he tells this
woman, I do not condemn thee. Absolutely free of all your sins. Even the sin you just committed.
Now this woman came to know God, didn't she? She knew the mercy
of God. And she knew it so well that
this is all she could think about. I'm sure she did. Notice he says,
In the next part, in verse 11, neither do I condemn thee. And here's the next part, the
mystery here. Go and sin no more. Now, I don't
know about you, but that troubles me when I first read that. Go
and sin no more? Which of us have ever done that?
And how then can we claim to be like this woman? Because this
is the Lord speaking. He just made known the mystery
of God, how he could take away sin by the obedience and sacrifice
of himself. And then he tells this woman,
go and sin no more. And what is she going to do?
Yeah, I've begun in the spirit, but now I got to go be perfected
by the flesh. Is that what she was thinking?
Of course not. She was thinking, the Lord who
spoke life through the gospel to me, is going to fulfill all
of His Word. He's going to save me to the
uttermost by the same blood and the same power. He's not going
to leave me in my sins. He's going to save me from my
sins, even the power of sin over me. Sin, according to Romans
6.14, shall not have dominion over you. Why? Not because we're
under the law, but because we're under grace, Romans 6.14. It's grace that delivered us
from the law. It's grace that provides us the
Spirit of God to look to Christ. It's not our own ability. We
can't dredge up this grace. God has to give it to us. And
it's only in seeing Christ and Him crucified that we then see
the glory of God. And we continue to look at the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And like looking in a
mirror, looking at Christ, we're changed into the same image from
glory to glory. Let's look at some verses of
scripture just real quickly. Look at 2 Corinthians 3. Go to
these verses, take them back to the Lord who says, go and
sin no more. This was your word, this was
your promise. Abraham believed that God was
able to do what he promised, therefore it was imputed to him
for righteousness. Look at 2 Corinthians 3, verse
17. Now the Lord, 2 Corinthians 3,
17, the Lord is that spirit and where the spirit of the Lord
is, there is liberty, liberty in Christ. the one who set us
free by his blood. But we all, with open face, we're
not hiding now, this is in public, beholding as in a glass the glory
of the Lord, that's the gospel, the gospel glass, are changed
into the same image, looking at Christ in the gospel, from
glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord. How do we
accomplish this? We don't. Christ does, by his
spirit. Look at Philippians chapter two.
Philippians chapter 2 and verse 12. He says in Philippians 2.12,
wherefore my beloved As you have obeyed, not as in my presence
only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling, for it is God which works in you
both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Lord, work in
me that will. Look at Philippians, just turn
back a page to Philippians chapter one and verse six. Notice this,
he says, being confident of this very thing that he which has
begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Christ. Isn't that the Lord speaking
here? The one who justified us is going to fulfill his word.
Look at First Thessalonians, chapter five. First Thessalonians,
chapter five, he says in verse 23, of 1 Thessalonians chapter
5, the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, entirely. Who's going to do the sanctifying?
The God of peace. And I pray, God, your whole spirit
and soul and body, everything about you be preserved blameless
unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And now he says, verse
24, faithful is he that calls you who also will do it. Do you
see that the strength doesn't come from us? Look at Hebrews
chapter 13. Hebrews chapter 13 in verse 20. This is a sensitive subject,
isn't it? Because we're sinners. And we're
guilty, and we don't have anything to say. And we need an advocate. And our advocate says, neither
do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. And we're
tempted to begin to turn away from the eyes of the face of
our advocate to look for another savior. He says in Hebrews 13.20,
now the God of peace. He made peace through the blood
of Christ that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus.
because he justified him in that. That great shepherd of the sheep,
through the blood of the everlasting covenant, do what? Make you perfect
in every good work to do his will, working in you that which
is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom
be glory forever and ever. Amen. And then look at Jude,
the book just before Revelation. In the last two verses of Jude,
he says, now unto him, that is able to keep you from falling
and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory
with exceeding joy. God is not going to be disappointed. The Lord Jesus Christ will do,
He will finish His work, and that's what hope is. Hope is
the expectation that because all depends on Christ, we look
again to Him who saved us to save us to the uttermost. What
glorious truth this is, isn't it? It's wonderful, it's wonderful,
it's wonderful. You're saved by grace, he says
in Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2, he says, for by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast, for we are his workmanship. We're not our own workmanship. We're His workmanship. And as
soon as we get our eyes off of the law and seeing that God requires
this of us and don't see our utter guilt and helplessness,
Because that's what we grow up with until we see Christ and
him crucified is everything that fulfills God's law Everything
that answers God for my sin and also by his spirit giving me
his life That we might live our life by the faith of the Son
of God who loved me and gave himself for me Until we see that
we're without strength But then when we see this, then we can
call on him who saves to the uttermost. Iniquities prevail
against me, but as for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away. That's
grace, isn't it? What a lesson. These four gathered
together, the Lord Jesus Christ and the woman, the Lord Jesus
and his people, the enemies of God's people coming to accuse
them with what God requires and the Lord Jesus Christ standing
as our surety and our substitute to answer God and silence our
enemies and send them out in silence to let their conscience
speak against them and to suffer because they don't know God. And God has, by His grace, made
us to know Him in the New Covenant. We know the Lord, and we know
Him in His mercy and His grace, and we therefore come to Him
by the Lord Jesus Christ, and we ask Him, Lord, give me this
grace, day by day. Give me this grace day by day.
Let's pray. Father, thank you for the Lord
Jesus Christ, our only Savior, our hope. We look for him to
deliver us from our sins entirely. We have no power in ourselves
to do one thing of all that you require because we're great sinners
and nothing but sinners in ourselves. But thank God through Jesus Christ,
our Lord, the triumph and the victory is given to us. And we
pray, Lord, that you would realize this promise in us that we would
be saved to the uttermost. We would awaken your likeness.
We would see your face and be satisfied. And we would worship
God for all eternity for your mercy to us. In Jesus' name we
pray. Amen.