Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching from the book of
Philippians. This is Paul's, the Apostle Paul's
letter, epistle to the church at Philippi. And this letter,
it's a short letter, but it is full of so much truth, gospel
truth and encouragement. As Paul wrote these people being
concerned, once again, which is a common problem, false preachers
who had crept into the church, preaching legalism, and a lot
of times they were unbelieving Jews who claimed to believe in
Christ, who claimed to believe salvation was by grace or is
by grace, but they would add their works of the law and especially
try to bring Gentile believers under the law of Moses in order
to really be saved, or to really be made righteous, or to be holy,
or to ensure salvation. And I'm gonna talk about that
in just a minute. The title of the message is Saved Unto the
End. And my text is verse six of chapter
one of Philippians. I'm gonna read quite a bit of
this, or some of this chapter. But Paul, he thanks, he opens
the letter, he mentions Timothy, look at verse one, Paul and Timotheus,
the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus,
which are at Philippi, with the bishops, that's the overseers,
and the deacons, that's the servants of the church. And he says, I
thank my God upon every remembrance of you. I thank God for you.
And every time that I think of you or mention you or somebody
else mentions you, the believers, the brethren at Philippi, he
said, I just thank God for you. And I believe this is the attitude
of every gospel preacher, especially those who are saved under his
ministry. And here's the thing about that. The preacher does not save anybody. It's God who saves. Salvation
is of the Lord. Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 1, he
said, this is a faithful saying worthy of all acceptation that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am
chief. Christ is the Savior. I tell
people all the time that when we're born again by the Spirit,
that's the Holy Spirit sent from God to apply personally the life,
the resurrection life of Jesus Christ, spiritual life, to spiritually
dead sinners. And that's called the new birth,
regeneration and conversion. And he does it under the preaching
of the gospel. Now, it's not the preacher who
preaches it that gives life to a dead sinner or saves that sinner. It's not the gospel message itself
that has any power to save many, many people. In fact, if you
believe the scriptures, most people who hear the gospel with
the physical ear do not believe it, walk away unaffected. Christ
spoke of that in Matthew chapter 13 when he talked about the parable
of the grounds. It had different types of here.
The sower goes out to sow the seed. That seed, that spora,
that's what that word is, spora, like a farmer sowing a seed,
and that seed is the gospel of how God saves sinners by his
grace. conditioned on Christ who fulfilled
those conditions, not for himself, but as the surety, the substitute,
the redeemer of his people. And he did that by his obedience
unto death, having their sins charged to him. And he came to
this earth and took into union with himself a perfect sinless
humanity, human nature. He became God-man, that's the
person of Christ. That shows us that He is not
only willing to save His people given to Him by God before the
foundation of the world, but He's able to do so. It took one
who is both God and man and one person to accomplish the salvation
of His people. And then His obedience unto death
as our substitute, the substitute of His sheep, God's elect, not
all without exception now, But those for whom He died, He laid
down His life for the sheep, and He died on the cross to satisfy
the justice of God by His death, His blood, His death, and establish
a righteousness by which God can justify and save and give
sinners life. And that's what the gospel is.
All for whom Christ lived and died, was buried and arose again
the third day shall be saved. So when we, it's Christ who saves
and he sends out the Holy Spirit to bring his people under the
preaching of the gospel and those who have that holy calling as
Paul called it in 1 Timothy 1, the holy calling, or 2 Timothy
1, rather, called with a holy calling, a special calling, an
irresistible, invincible calling, whereby the Spirit, by God, by
the Spirit, through Christ, draws them. And that's an unbeatable
compulsion, whereby the Spirit, through the gospel, convicts
God's people. of sin and of righteousness and
of judgment, and brings them to Christ in faith, God-given
faith. You see, faith is a gift of God,
not of works, lest any man should boast. And God-given repentance,
even repentance is a gift of God. Do you know that every blessing
and benefit of salvation is a free gift from God? None of it's natural
to us. You see, salvation and the new
birth is not the product of your decision. Some people today preach
decisional regeneration. And what they teach is against
the Bible. They say, well, a person, even
though fallen in Adam and even though a sinner, he's got some
good in him whereby he can make the right choice when it comes
to salvation. But the Bible teaches otherwise.
The Bible says, the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God, neither can he know them. They're spiritually
discerned, and man is spiritually dead by nature. Ephesians 2.1,
and you hath he quickened, given life, who were dead in trespasses
and sins. And so if left to ourselves,
we will not choose God's way of salvation unto his glory.
We want our own way that gives us some glory. That's what Paul
was talking about in Romans chapter 3 and verse 10, and verse 10,
11, 12, when he talked about there's none righteous, no, not
one. There's none good, no, not one. There's none that seeketh
after God, no, not one. You see, in order for a sinner
to believe God, he first has to be given life from the dead. Christ said it this way in John
3, you must be born again. Now my point as per this message
is this, Salvation begins and continues and goes to its final
glorification by the will, the goodness, and the power of God. Not by the will, the goodness,
or the power of the sinner. And it's not that God drags us
to Christ unwillingly. But what He does, He gives us
new life, a new heart, a new mind, new affections, new will
by the power of the Spirit. And He changes our will. He makes
us willing in the day of His power, through this power of
the Spirit in the preaching of the gospel. And that's why it
says the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believeth. To the Jew first, the Greek also,
for therein is the righteousness of God revealed. From faith,
that's knowledge revealed, the gospel revealed, Christ revealed.
To faith, that's knowledge received and believed and obeyed, Christ
received and believed and obeyed. You see that. So when we look
at all of that, we see that salvation's of the Lord. So when Paul says,
I think, verse three of Philippians one, I thank my God upon every
remembrance of you, always, verse four, in every prayer of mine,
for you all making requests with joy for your fellowship in the
gospel from the first day until now. And look at verse six. Now
here's my text. Being confident, assured of this
very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will
perform it or finish it, complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. In other words, until Christ
appears again and receives his people up under glory. So what
is he telling us? He says, he's saying here is
that, that God is the one who began salvation in his people. And you think about it, you know,
when you look at the scriptures and you understand the sovereignty,
the goodness of God, all of that, God is eternal. And the scripture speaks of God
before the foundation of the world, choosing a people to save
by His grace, through the work that Christ would come and do
in time, Bible speaks of a salvation that was given to God's people
in Christ Jesus before the world began. And then He sent His Son
into the world to obey the law perfectly and go to the cross
And you remember Christ on the cross right before he gave up
the ghost and said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.
He said, it is finished. Now what he's talking about is
all the conditions and stipulations and requirements to save his
people from their sins and ensure their salvation, he did it all. All of salvation was conditioned
on Him, and He fulfilled every condition. He didn't leave any
condition upon you or me in order to attain or maintain salvation.
I've said on this program a lot that the two things that are
common to all false religions is that salvation, or whatever
they call salvation, from sin, from the bindings of this world,
that salvation, they believe that it's conditioned on man
and woman, sinners, at some stage, in some way, to some degree.
The gospel of God's grace tells us that all of salvation was
conditioned on Christ, and that Christ fulfilled those conditions. to ensure the salvation of every
sinner whom God gave him, chose and gave him, for the foundation
of the world. He said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will
unknowwise cast out. So the second thing that false
religion does is they will measure righteousness and holiness on
a sliding scale. The gospel doesn't do that. The
gospel is the revelation of the righteousness of God, Romans
1, 16 and 17, that I quoted before. The gospel standard of righteousness
and holiness is found in Christ. And it tells me that by nature
I have no righteousness. By nature and by works I can
gain no righteousness. I cannot attain righteousness
by my works, no matter how good I try to be. No matter how much
I isolate myself, it can't be done. By deeds of law shall no
flesh be justified. And so the standard of righteousness
is the perfection of the law and justice of God, satisfaction
that can only be found in the person and work of Christ. And
so what happens is all whom God chose and all for whom Christ
died and arose again the third day. Even those in the Old Testament,
because they looked forward to the death of Christ, the death,
burial, and resurrection, God sends the Spirit through Christ
to every one of His people and brings them under the gospel
and He begins a good work in them. Salvation. And that's the new birth, that's
regeneration and conversion under the gospel, that form of doctrine
which you were delivered to, that's what the Bible says. And
that's what Paul's talking about. He's saying, look at verse six
again, being confident of this very thing, that you're gonna
keep on keeping on, no. Paul's confidence was not in
their ability or their goodness to continue and persevere. Now,
was he confident that they will continue and persevere? Yes,
but the confidence came from God. God who saved you is going
to keep you and bring you to glory. God will not let you go. And Paul spoke of that in 2 Timothy,
I believe it is, when he said, I know whom I have believed,
and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've
committed unto him against that day. Now, I believe that's 2
Timothy 1 verse 12. What's Paul saying there is that
I'm not able to keep myself, I'm a sinner. I'm involved in
a warfare between the flesh and the Spirit, and so many times
I give into the flesh and I have to be brought back by the Lord,
brought to godly sorrow over my sin. I know I've been completely
forgiven by the blood of Christ. The Bible says that if you're
a believer. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.
So we cannot be condemned. Nobody can lay any charge to
God's elect. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. We cannot
be condemned. Who can condemn us? It's Christ
that died. You see that language there?
Christ that died, yea rather, is risen again, seated at the
right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession for
us. Christ saves us. Christ keeps us. He will not
let us go. In the book of Jude, the last
two verses in your King James Bible, it says, this is the doxology,
the praise and the worship. Jude 24, it 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, to the only
wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power,
both now and ever. Amen. Christ is able. Now, I know a
lot of people, they say, well, if I believe that, if I believe
that I couldn't be lost, I'd just go out here and sin as much
as I want to. Well, there's several things
wrong with that. Number one, it denies the power
of grace to change our lives and grace saves us legally and
spiritually through Christ. and is imprinted upon our hearts
and our minds to inspire and motivate and energize us to fight
sin, not to give in to it, to a warfare of the flesh and the
spirit. And then what they're actually telling you, when they
say, well, I just sin as much as I want to, I'd ask them this,
how much do you want to sin? Do you not hate sin? Do you not
fight against sin? Well, why do you do it? Well,
they're doing it in legalism. Because if they don't do it,
they think they're gonna go to hell. And that's not why, listen,
that's not the motive of grace to cause God's people to serve
him, to fight sin, to be obedient, to be good stewards. The motive
of grace, the motive for obedience that God accepts through Christ
is gratitude and love. and the assurance, the comfort.
That's what Paul's saying back here, being confident of this
very thing. Well, what are you confident,
Paul? That He which hath begun a good work, God. And what was
the good work? Well, you can talk about it in
various facets. You can talk about the good work
before the world began. You can talk about the good work
in the creation of the world. When Adam and Eve fell and then
God revealed the gospel to them in Genesis 3.15, the seed of
woman, and how he would accomplish it in Genesis 3.21, through the
death of a substitute and a surety, all of that. God's work all the
way through the Old Testament, and then to bring Christ into
the world, that's God's good work. And then all through the
Bible, God giving life to his people by the Spirit from Christ. And Christ said it, you must
be born again or you cannot see the kingdom of God. You cannot
enter the kingdom of God. And over in the book of John
chapter one, John tells us about that new birth. It says in verse
11 of John chapter one, he, that is Christ, came unto his own
and his own received him not. Now most commentators will tell
you that's talking about his own nation because in his humanity
he was a Jew, an Israelite. He was made of the seed of David
coming from the tribe of Judah, the royal tribe. And so that's
his humanity. Now he wasn't born with the aid
of man like we are, and he wasn't born in a fallen state, a spiritually
dead state. He had a perfect, immaculate
conception and birth. And he was born of a virgin. He is God, Emmanuel, God with
us. But when he came to his own nation,
the Jews, they didn't receive him. Now, there were a few that
did receive him, but it was very few. It was a remnant. You know,
the concept of the remnant in the Old Testament and in the
New is very important. Paul wrote about that in Romans
chapter 11. He spoke of how the majority,
from Romans 9 through 11, chapters 9, 10, 11, he spoke of how the
majority of the Jewish nation rejected the Messiah. The very
one that they looked for, they rejected him and died in unbelief. But there was a remnant, and
you know what he says about that remnant? Not that they were better
people than those who rejected him. No, because we'd all reject
him if left to ourselves. This remnant was according to
the election of grace. They're those whom God chose
to save by His grace. based upon the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ, His righteousness imputed. and where
his righteousness is imputed, God will, in his appointed time,
come and give them life from the dead by the power of the
Spirit, under the preaching of the gospel, and give them the
gift of faith in Christ and repentance of dead works, and bring them
to persevere in the faith. Why? Because he preserves them.
He that begun the good work will finish it. He'll complete it.
He'll perfect it. Now this new birth, as I said,
does not come by your decision. Now preachers preach that, but
they're not going with the scriptures now. And that's what he said
in John 1, 11. He came into his own and his
own received him not. But look at verse 12. But as
many as received him, to them gave he power to become or to
be called the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.
Do you claim to be a child of God? A son or daughter of God? Do you claim to be saved? Do
you claim to be born again, adopted into his family and born again
by his? What right do you have to make that claim? Now that's
what he's talking about. When he says to them, gave he
the power to become, that word power is not ability. Because
we don't have the ability to become or be called sons of God. Only God has that ability. He
began the good work. But that word power means the
right to do so. What right do I have to call
myself a child of God? And he says, even to them that
believe on his name. Now his name is that which identifies
and distinguishes him from idols, from false counterfeit Christ.
Who is Jesus Christ? He's God manifest in the flesh. What did he do? What did he accomplish? He saves his people from their
sins. Why did He do it? That God would
be just and justify the ungodly. Where is He now? He was raised
from the dead and ascended to the Father, seated at the right
hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession for His
people. And that's what He does. And
in that intercession, He's our intercessor, He's our mediator,
He keeps us unto the end and will not let us go. Now he says,
those who believe on his name, look at John 1 13. He says, which
were born not of blood. Now this had nothing to do with
your first physical birth because that you were born in sin. I
was born in sin, spiritually dead, depraved. That's why we
must be born again. So this new birth was not by
blood. And it says, nor of the will
of the flesh. Now, I believe that's talking
about the works of the flesh. Working hard to keep the law
will not give you life, will not save you, will not make you
righteous. Again, by deeds of law shall
no flesh be justified in His sight. And then, nor of the will
of man. It wasn't your decision that
caused you to be born again. Famous preacher of the past wrote
a book on how to be born again. Well, he went beyond the scriptures
because the scripture doesn't tell us how to be born again.
It says we must be. And then he said, but you were
born of God. Now, if you were born of God,
I'm confident that he which began that good work in you, the new
birth, will perform it, complete it, finish it until the day of
Jesus Christ. and you'll appear before Him
washed in His blood, clothed in His righteousness, and enter
eternity in the fellowship of glory with God through Christ. Hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.