It is not that I did choose thee,
Lord, for Lord, that could not be. Yuba-Sutter Grace Church
would like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Rick
Warda. We currently meet at the Yuba
County Library, located at 303 2nd Street in downtown Marysville,
California, on the corner of 2nd and C Street. Weekly services
are held on Sunday at 11 a.m. at the library. For more information,
visit our website at ysgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Rick Warda. The scripture for our sermon
today is found in Matthew chapter 20 verse 17 through 28. And Jesus,
going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples apart in the
way and said to them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the
Son of Man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto
the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver
him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify, and
the third day he shall rise again. Then came to him the mother of
Zebedee's children with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring
a certain thing of him. And he said to her, What wilt
thou? She said to him, Grant that these
my two sons may sit the one on the right hand, and the other
on the left, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said,
You know not what you ask. Are you able to drink of the
cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism
that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able.
And he said unto them, You shall drink indeed of my cup, and be
baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with, but to sit
on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but for
whom it is prepared of my father. And when the ten heard it, they
were moved with indignation against the two brethren. But Jesus called
them to him and said, You know that the princes of the Gentiles
exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise
authority upon them. But it shall not be so among
you. But whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister. And whosoever will be chief among
you, let him be your servant, even as the Son of Man came not
to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life
a ransom for many. I've entitled this sermon, Our
Redeemer, Our Assurance. Consider this surprising truth
first, that Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, the Prince of
Life, came to serve. He did not come that men might
serve Him, as though He needed anything, or as though the service
of sinful man could have any value to Him. Sinful man is bound
in sins under the law. He cannot serve God. He cannot
worship God. Joshua 24, verse 19. Christ's
humility, indeed the very heart of God himself, is seen in stark
contrast here to human pride. His humility is seen in ultimate
self-denial and ultimate self-sacrifice, even as he offered himself as
a sacrifice for these proud, contentious, presumptuous disciples. James and John sought for the
highest place among the disciples, even among all others in the
kingdom of heaven. They wanted to sit one on the
left hand and one on the right hand. And the other ten disciples
were indignant against them because they thought they should have
the place of preeminence themselves. Pride is a part of our sin nature. It is present in all that we
do. It can only be subdued by free grace. This text of scripture
proves that to us. In the face of the pride and
presumption of James and John and the other disciples, Jesus
bears himself in humility and holds himself up as the lowest
servant. He tells these disgusting sinners
that he would give himself to pay the ransom his people owed
God by the debt of their sins and set them free from the curse
and bondage of their sin, of God's law, of death, and from
the devil himself, in short, from every enemy. James and John
thought that by enduring whatever suffering was required, they
would be worthy to sit at Christ's right and left hand. How ignorant
of God's grace they appeared now to be. Yet, what was in them
is found in the heart of every one of us. Pride is no stranger
to us. It is our constant companion.
It is the tyrant that influences all that we think and do. Jesus
told James and John they did not know what they were asking.
He asked them, Are you able to drink of the cup that I shall
drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized
with? They presumptuously and naively
said, we are able. Jesus then said that they would
indeed drink his cup and be baptized with his baptism. Now the truth
of the gospel is that every believer suffers what Christ suffered
and died the death that he died because he stood as their substitute
and representative. There is only one way that it
can be truthfully said that these disciples drank the cup of wrath
the Lord Jesus drank and were baptized in the sea of woe into
which he was baptized. They did so just as all of God's
elect did. They drank His cup and were baptized
into His baptism representatively. God made Christ the head of his
people that he might deal with all of his elect in one man,
even the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as Adam stood for the entire
human race in that covenant of works, Christ stood for all of
God's eternally adopted sons in the covenant of grace. In
Christ, all of God's elect are completely and perfectly saved
by His representative work as our substitute. By His pre-agreed
suretyship with God the Father, all that God's elect did by their
sin became Christ's to bear. Therefore, Scripture says, that
for His people, Jesus Christ was made sin, 2 Corinthians 5.21. And by this same eternal arrangement,
all that Christ did became the possession of all of His people.
He was made sin in order that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him, 2 Corinthians 5.21. Thus, every believer suffered
and died with Christ, and in his suffering and death, they
suffered and they died. Romans 6, 6-11, 1 Peter 2, 24.
God received all that Christ did as from his people. Let me say that again. God received
all that Christ did as from his people. God raised the Lord Jesus
Christ from the dead and with him raised all who were given
to him. Ephesians 2.6 Romans 4.25 There is no greater comfort to
the soul of every believer than this, that God put upon Christ
and received from Christ all that he demanded and required
of me. In the Lord Jesus Christ, every
believer is the very righteousness of God. Second, the Lord Jesus
Christ paid himself to God as the ransom for the souls of his
people. Jesus said that he came to give himself a ransom to God
for many. The price paid for the souls
of God's elect people is Christ's blood. 1 Peter 1 verse 18-19.
He paid that price to God. Psalm 49 verse 7-8. Now the only thing that matters
in our redemption is what God thinks of the obedience and suffering
and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The only issue is did Christ
pay the ransom? And did God receive full payment
from our Redeemer? That is the only thing that matters.
If Christ paid all, and if God received His ransom in satisfaction
for our sins, then all for whom Christ paid a ransom are redeemed. They are set free. They are released. And from this we see several
things. First, we see that the evil of our sin can only be measured
by the price of our redemption. How holy is God? How just is
God's law? How evil is my sin? All of these
questions and more are only answered by this. What was the price God
required for our redemption? And the answer is, it is Christ
that died, Romans 8.34. Second, the strength of our sin
can only be measured by the strength of the one who redeemed us from
our enemies. Zacharias, the father of John
the Baptist, by the Spirit of God said that Christ would redeem
his people from their enemies. In Luke 1, verse 68-75, he says,
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed
his people, and has raised up an horn of salvation for us in
the house of his servant David, as he spake by the mouth of his
holy prophets, which have been since the world began, that we
should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that
hate us, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and
to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our
father Abraham, that he would grant unto us, that we, being
delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him
without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all
the days of our life. What are the enemies from which
Christ has redeemed his people? First, sin. The Lord says in
Isaiah 44 verse 22, I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions,
and as a cloud thy sins. Return unto me, for I have redeemed
thee. And in Psalm 130, verse 7, he
says, "...he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities." Titus
2.14 says, "...who gave himself for us, that he might redeem
us from all iniquity." And what other enemies? The law of God,
both its curse against us for our sin and bondage to fulfill
it for our righteousness and to receive life. Galatians 3.13
says, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being
made a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone that
hangs on a tree. And from what other enemies did
the Lord Jesus Christ redeem his people? From death and the
grave. Hosea 13.14 says, I will ransom
them from the power of the grave. I will redeem them from death.
And the Lord has redeemed us from Satan. In Hebrews 2, verse
14, it says that through death the Lord Jesus Christ destroyed
him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. And the Lord
has redeemed us from the world and religious works and ceremonies
and all activities and philosophies by which men of this world imagine
they are or can become acceptable to God, that they can receive
rewards from God, that they can live and enjoy peace and happiness
by what they are or think or do. All of these are empty, valueless,
positively filthy rags and idolatry before God. In Galatians 1.4
it says that Jesus gave himself for our sins that he might deliver
us from this present evil world according to the will of God
our Father. The third thing we see from this
scripture in Matthew chapter 20, we see the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ. First, we see the grace of God
in its measure by the cost Christ paid to redeem us. And we see
it because it was paid for sinners whose guilt and corruption deserve
only the wrath of God. Perhaps your own children whom
you love have rebelled against your loving instruction and the
boundaries you placed around them for their safety and for
their good. Perhaps they have despised you for your instruction.
Perhaps they have treated your love as constraining bondage.
If so, what is your reaction? Have you felt a measure of anger
towards them? How could they be so ungrateful,
so cruel in return for your loving provision and care over them?
Now, think of the infinitely greater rebellion that we exerted
against our good and great God. and now see in Christ the heart
of humility and the grace of God. In spite of our open enmity
against Him, He looked for reason to save us, not in ourselves,
but in Himself. He made a way for His grace.
He provided all things for us. He put Himself in harm's way
by interposing Himself under His own justice in the person
of His Son. He created a human nature for
his own son, and in that nature made him guilty for the sins
of his rebellious people. Then, in justice, he plunged
the sword of his wrath into his own son." Zechariah 13, verse
7. In all this, Christ willingly,
voluntarily, and in humility offered himself up as the ransom
payment for those who were his enemies. He endured all that
God required to make satisfaction for the sins of His people. Now
in all this, see the infinite humility and the riches of God's
grace towards His people. Do you and I know this great,
glorious God and Almighty Savior who humbled Himself so? The second
way in which we see the grace of our Savior and His ransom
for us is that it is certain that I can bring nothing to God
to take away one sin or overcome one sin or contribute one thing
to my salvation. because of the dignity and the
greatness of Christ who was ransomed. He who sits on heaven's throne
gave himself a ransom to God as the price required by God
to remit the debt of sinful men and their rebellion against God.
The price he paid was himself, his own blood. Therefore, the
evil of our sin is beyond all comprehensible measure. The death
of Christ is the measure of the evil of our sin. And the strength
of our sin is greater than we could ever free ourselves. We
are slaves to sin in our nature and accountable to God for eternal
damnation. We see this evil and power of
sin in the dignity and the greatness of the one who God required to
put it away. And in this we see the grace
of our ransoming Savior. If God could have offered all
of creation, it would not have been sufficient to take away
one sin. Isaiah 40 verse 16. If there
had been a way for you and me to take away one sin or free
ourselves from the power and strength of our own sin, then
God would never have sacrificed his son. But there was no other
payment sufficient to redeem. Galatians 2.16 says, I do not
frustrate the grace of God. If righteousness come by the
law, then Christ is dead in vain. But God did require Christ to
give himself, and Christ did drink the cup of indignation,
and Christ was baptized under the flood of God's wrath. Therefore,
righteousness comes by him alone, and there is no righteousness
apart from his obedience unto death. The fourth thing we see
in the scripture, in which Christ said he would give himself a
ransom for many, is that in Christ alone we have assurance of our
salvation. What is the assurance of our
salvation? First, we must understand that when Christ gave himself
a ransom to God, that God received his offering as full payment. His ransom obtained, really,
actually, obtained from God eternal redemption for His people. Hebrews
chapter 9 verse 12. Do you believe it? And do I believe
it? Christ offered Himself to God
and obtained eternal redemption for His people. And His offering
was obedience to God. John chapter 10 verse 15 and
verse 17 through 18. He willingly and completely and
perfectly rendered everlasting obedience to God on behalf of
and in the place of His people. To have assurance before God,
therefore, we must see what God sees. He tells us what He sees. Exodus 12, verse 13, When I see
the blood, I will pass over you. All that God looks for, all that
He looks at, is the obedience and blood of His Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, that redeeming ransom price of His life offered
to God for His people. By His one offering, He obtained
eternal forgiveness of their sins. He obtained their release
from the curse of God's law. He obtained their freedom from
the bondage of bringing personal obedience to God for their acceptance. And He obtained their freedom
from the devil and from death itself. God sees Christ for His
people and receives Him for them and receives them as Him. Jesus
said, in John 17, verse 23, in prayer to his Father, I in them,
and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that
the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved
them as thou hast loved me. Secondly, the assurance of salvation
is found in what God says. God says that he looks upon and
receives from Christ all that he required to forgive his people
to make them righteous. Isaiah chapter 45 verse 24 says,
Surely shall one say, In the Lord have I righteousness and
strength. In the Lord shall all the seed
of Israel be justified and shall glory. And God looks upon Christ
to give His people eternal inheritance. Hebrews 9.15 says, For this cause
He is the mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death,
for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament,
they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. God looks to Christ for satisfaction
for all of the sins of all of His people, and they are free
from all claims of His law to bring obedience, to earn righteousness
and life from Him, or to satisfy its curse. God looks only upon
His Son for all that He requires of them. Therefore, he commands
us to look only to Christ. Hebrews 12, verse 2 says, looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And in John 6,
verse 40, Jesus said, This is the will of him that sent me,
that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may
have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day. God commands us to look only
to Christ, to flee to Christ, to run to Him for refuge, to
come to Christ, to find all that God Himself requires in Christ
alone. Colossians 2 verse 9 and 10.
He commands us to rest in Christ. Hebrews 4 verse 1 through 10.
To submit to Christ in all things. Romans chapter 10 verse 3 and
following. Does God require my eternal damnation
because of my sins? He gave that cup of indignation
to His own dear Son to drink, and by drinking it to pay the
debt of ransom for my soul. Does God's law require the flood
of His wrath to be poured out upon me for my sins? The Lord
Jesus Christ was baptized under that flood. In Jonah chapter
2, the Spirit of God prophesied of Christ. I cried by reason
of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me. Out of the belly
of hell, cried I, and thou heardst my voice, for thou hast cast
me into the deep. In the midst of the seas and
the floods compassed me about, all thy billows and thy waves
passed over me. And in Psalm 69, the Lord says,
Save me, O God, for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink
in deep mire, where there is no standing. I am come into deep
waters, where the floods overflow me. And in Psalm 88, verse 7,
Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with
all thy waves. Does God require these things
of me? He found them in His own Son. Does God require my damnation? He poured out that damnation
on His own Son. And does God require perfection
from me? The Lord Jesus Christ perfected
me by His one offering. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 14.
By one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified. Is there remission of sins in
nothing but Christ's blood? Then full remission has been
made because Christ shed His blood. Listen to what God says
in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 16 and following. He says, This
is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith
the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their
minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will
I remember no more. Now, where remission of these
is, there is no more offering for sin. And then listen carefully
to what the Lord says next, "...having therefore, brethren, boldness
to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new
and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the
veil, that is to say, his flesh, and having a high priest over
the house of God, Let us draw near with a true heart in full
assurance of faith. Having our hearts sprinkled from
a nevo conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, let us
hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He
is faithful that promised. because God looks only to His
Son, because God tells us that He looks only to His Son, and
because God commands us to come to Him only through His Son.
Therefore, the assurance of salvation is that everything is provided
by God out of His grace in Christ alone. Only our pride keeps us
from coming and finding and resting in Christ alone. Only our pride
prevents our conscience from finding peace unless we find
reason for that peace in ourselves. Only our own pride withholds
assurance from our own conscience because we require something
more than Christ crucified as our all before God. The psalmist
says in Psalm 10, verse 4, the wicked, through the pride of
his countenance, will not seek after God. God is not in all
his thoughts. The pride of our heart keeps
us from seeking and finding our all in Christ. What God requires,
He provided in Christ and received from Christ alone. The Lord Jesus
Christ obtained eternal redemption for His people by the ransom
of Himself to God. All God requires, He gives by
virtue of Christ's redeeming blood. In Acts 5.31, the Lord
says, Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince
and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel and the forgiveness
of sins. And in Romans 5.17 he says, "...they
which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness
shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." Now, if our sins are
taken away by God's grace alone, And if He gives righteousness
by His grace alone, then what arrogance on our part is it to
entertain a subconscious thought that we could add to what Christ
has accomplished by anything we do to make our salvation more
certain? All of our experience must be
abandoned as any cause for comfort, because God sees and receives
from Christ all that he requires for his people. Faith itself,
by which we are enabled to look to Christ alone, is God's gift
of grace. Justification is God's gift by
virtue of Christ's blood, Romans 5, verse 10. Eternal life is
God's gift, Romans 6, verse 23. Sanctification is by Christ's
offering of himself. Remission of sins and perfection
before God are by the one offering of Jesus Christ. There is absolutely
nothing, nothing, nothing that is not freely given by God out
of His grace to His people on the grounds of the ransom Christ
paid with Himself. Therefore, what do we look for
in ourselves? We must look away from all that
may be called ours and find our all only in what belongs to Christ. When you and I are persuaded
in God-given faith to look to Christ alone, only then will
we have full assurance of faith. The one who sees that God looks
to Christ and receives from Christ all that He demands and requires
of me, the one who sees that God finds all in Christ in spite
of the worst possible evil in me and my utter helplessness
against sin, that soul will find rest and assurance in Christ. That God-given faith will say
from God's own word, the Son of God loved me and gave himself
for me, who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver
us from this present evil world. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law being made a curse for us. If you or I try
to find one reason in ourselves why we can claim these promises
of God in our conscience, we will never have true peace and
rest. We must find every reason for
assurance in God's sovereign grace and in Christ's redeeming
blood and His justifying righteousness. Many think, we all naturally
do, that God will reward us for what His grace accomplishes in
us, as if by God's grace working in us, we can become what God
requires. But this is utterly false. In
fact, it is idolatry. If God, by His grace, could produce
in you or me what He requires of us, then Christ did not need
to die. Galatians 2.21 says, I do not
frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness come by the
law, by my personal obedience, then Christ died for nothing.
Only Christ Himself, given in ransom, could free me from the
guilt of sin, and the power of sin, and from the curse of God's
law, and bondage to keep God's law in order to make God happy
with me. Only the suffering and death
of the Son of God in my nature, offered to God, as a ransom,
for my sins could free me from my sin, from the devil, from
death, from the world, and the law of God. And Christ has freed
me from these by giving himself to God in death as a ransom. The other reason for assurance
before God is that because we are redeemed by Christ, we are
under grace alone. Grace provides all to the most
unworthy, even great and horrible sinners. There is no such thing
as a little sinner saved by Christ. If you can clean yourself up,
if you can put away one of your sins, if you can clean up or
quit Even one sin, then you don't need a Savior. Christ will only
do for you what is impossible. It is by His life given to God
for a ransom that He has done this. Romans 6.14 says, Sin shall
not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but
under grace. Now, the wickedness of our pride
is seen in our unbelief. God's own Word commands us to
look to Christ, to come to Him, to rest in Him. Furthermore,
He gives all grace to enable us to see Christ as all from
His Word. Therefore, to fail to submit
to Him as our complete and perfect payment to God for all of our
sins, or to fail to submit to His righteousness as all my obedience
to God, is nothing short of proud and wicked unbelief. Romans chapter
10 says that the Jews were ignorant of God's righteousness so they
went about to establish their own righteousness and therefore
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God
because Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to
everyone that believes. May God enable everyone who hears
my voice even now, to look away from our guilt, from our enslavement
to sin, from our corruptions, to Christ alone and find in Him
all that God requires of me and so go to God in peace and joy
and thankfulness and worship Him for all that He is to us
in our great Redeemer. You've just heard a sermon by
our pastor, Rick Warda. You may contact us by email or
by phone, or download a copy of this sermon by visiting our
website at ysgracechurch.com.