Open your Bibles to the book
of 1 Corinthians. The gospel is described in the New Testament as The glorious
gospel of God. As the gospel of the glorious
God. But I saw a sign that said, choice,
not chance, determines your destiny. I'm sure that The choice that
was spoken of there had to do with man's choice. So if that is the case, which
it's not, but if it were the case, how would salvation in
any way give glory to God? if on the one hand it was determined
by the choice of fallen sinners, or if on the other hand it was
left to chance. God is completely left out of
the equation. But the Bible always sets forth
salvation as being something that glorifies God so many ways,
so many times. And if I were to ask what God's
greatest glory is, many in our day would say the glorious Son
that He created, the glorious stars, the glorious earth, the
glorious flowers. But what is God's greatest glory? It is, of course, His salvation
that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. But if you read that first chapter
of Ephesians, it narrows it down just a little bit more, ascribing
to the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, this glory,
and saying that this salvation is to the praise of the glory
of His grace. It is to the praise of the glory
of His grace. I know that in our day especially,
religious people love to use that word grace. But grace as we find it in this
book, grace that is the grace of God, is so contrary to our
natural thinking, and really so offensive to our natural self-righteousness,
and so incompatible, you might say, with modern religious thought
and ideas, and on top of that, very foolish to them. When we talk about grace, it's
very foolish. As a matter of fact, here in
1 Corinthians 1 and verse 18, it says, For the preaching of
the cross is to them that perish foolishness. but unto us which
are saved it is the power of God." Down in verse 23. But we preach Christ crucified
unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness. You see, the preaching of the
cross which is inseparable to grace, is the exact opposite
of what we think and what we want to believe. But it was not foolishness to
the apostle Paul. The gospel of grace, as it was
to him and as it is to all God's sheep, is the power of God unto
salvation. And God had revealed to Paul
what He must reveal to you and to me and to all He saves if
we ever know Him and be saved from our sins by Him. And what He reveals. which is
the fact that His salvation in Christ is all of His grace. It excludes all human glorying. It puts us in the dust and shows
Him to be on the throne. We have nothing left to glory
in And He has everything to glory in. Listen to what Paul says,
beginning in verse 26. For you see your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, Not
many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which
are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are
despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to
bring to naught, or to bring to nothing things that are."
What is his reason for that? What is his goal in that? that no flesh should glory in
his presence, that no flesh should glory in his presence, but of
him Are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom,
and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that according
as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Now he says, as it is written,
and at least one place in the Old Testament that it is written
is in Jeremiah 9 and verse 23. Listen to what is said there. Thus saith the Lord, Let not
the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory
in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches, but
let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understands and
knows Me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness,
judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things
I delight, saith the Lord." He says, let Him glory in this,
that He knows me, that He's given understanding and knows that
He is the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, judgment, and
righteousness. In other words, not simply lovingkindness,
But at the same time, and in the same demonstration and exercise,
he shows lovingkindness and judgment, or justice, and righteousness. And that's what Paul is saying
that God does by grace in the Lord Jesus Christ, who by God
is made unto His people wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. He says, let him glory in the
fact that by grace he's been made to know and understand something
about redemption, something about salvation. And if He ever causes
us to truly know and understand something about salvation in
Christ, if we have a saving interest in Him, we will have to learn
something about grace. It's an easy one-syllable word
to pronounce. It is very often a popular word
on the lips of people in our day. But it is not something
that any of us ever know or understand by nature as we come into this
world or especially see that God's grace is His greatest glory. If you remember Moses of old,
who was used of God in so many ways, and saw things that you
and I cannot hardly even imagine. But even after he had seen what
he had seen and been used to do what he had done, He cries
out in Exodus 33 and says, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. What is your great glory? Is it in the fact that you caused
a bush to burn and not be consumed? Is it in the fact that you divided
the Red Sea? That you destroyed all the enemies
of Israel? That you turned a river into
blood? That you brought plagues? All
these things. Show me your great glory. And it says, I will make all
my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name
of the Lord before thee, or the renown of Jehovah, and will be
gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I
will show mercy." In other words, my greatest glory which I will
now declare to you is the glory of My sovereign grace." Somebody
always asks me, what do you all mean by the word sovereign grace? Well, God, as we find Him in
the Bible, declares Himself as the absolute, universal, sovereign. That means He rules over all
people and over all things. And to put it simply in a way
we can understand, it is this, God does what He will, when He
will, to whom He will, and how He will. He rules in the armies
of heaven and among the inhabitants of men, and none can stay His
hand or question Him in any way. So God, who is this absolute
Sovereign, who not only can, but does what He will to whom
He will, and should, if He viewed us only in ourselves, deal with
us in the strictest wrath and judgment, sending us into hell,
He has this great glory. He says, I will be gracious. to whom I will be gracious."
It's not universal. It is absolute, independent,
free grace. Sovereign grace. And that is
His glory. A glory that all His sheep are
made to behold and confess. that he was pleased in his independence
and in his sovereignty simply to choose to be gracious to them. They find out that their destiny,
rather than being caused by their choice, or by chance, or anything
else, their destiny was predetermined, or their predestiny was that
they be the objects of God's grace. God's grace. You see, God works
in grace that all the glory might belong to Him alone and that
it might magnify Him. Somebody says, well, why does
God have to get all the glory? There's just one reason. He is the only one who deserves
it. He alone is the only one that
is worthy of it. And so, as Paul says here in
this text, because when he gives this description, he is talking
on one hand about those he sends as ministers of the gospel of
grace, weak, frail, base things such as we are, and then also
this description fits those who are the objects of grace. Same kind of folks. And if you stop and think about
it, God might have used the abilities or the wisdom or the talents
of men to reveal this grace to men, but He didn't. As a matter
of fact, He describes it this way through the Apostle Paul.
He puts this treasure, And that's what the gospel of grace, the
gospel of Christ crucified is. He puts this treasure of the
gospel in earthen vessels. He puts it like water, not in
a silver chalice, but He puts it like water in a clay pot. And he joins that gospel with
his power that the glory might belong to him alone. That's one of my greatest fears
in preaching. And that is that I would say
something or that I would do something that would in some
way distract from God, distract from His Word, and cause men
in some way to applaud me or praise me rather than God Himself. You see, God absolutely does
save sinners. There is no question about it. But He saves them in a way in
which it excludes every particle of boasting and glorying on the
part of that one who is saved by Him. As a matter of fact,
not only does He intend to get all the glory, but knowing how
we are as proud sinners, knowing how much we have a tendency to
trust in ourselves and to exalt ourselves, it says that the Lord
of hosts hath purposed it to stain the pride of all glory. That glory you and I think we've
got because we've been good boys and girls all our days. That
good that we imagine we did, which was really nothing but
attempts to get glory for ourselves, all these things that we would
glory in, He is going to bring this salvation to us if He saves
us and stain the pride of our glory. He says, all your righteousnesses,
they're like filthy rags. that on your best day, when you
were at your pinnacle, you think, when you were doing your best,
when you were maybe, as people say, closest to the Lord, whatever
it is, He says, man at his best state is altogether vanity. But the Lord of hosts has purposed
to stain the pride of all glory and bring into contempt all the
honorable of the earth. And if you really know, if you
ever really find out your true condition, if you can ever, by
God's grace, be brought beyond that point wherein you believe
what mom or dad or granny or somebody said about you and bragged
on you or your school teacher, your friends, whoever they are,
if He can bring you beyond that to know your true condition,
Your own inability, your spiritual deadness and helplessness, and
all these things, you'll find out that this salvation that
is all of grace is exactly what you need. Exactly, precisely
what you need. And the thing is, It is necessary
that the Spirit of God reveal that to you, or you'll live and
die in self-satisfaction and contentment, go out to meet God
lost in your sins. I'll tell you what I pray for.
I pray for the Holy Spirit to convict somebody of their sins. We live in a day in which everybody
is so self-righteous and so proud of themselves and so content
to go on just like they are in this world, dabble a little bit
in religion, go to church a little bit, read the Bible a little
bit, have some connection with religion in some way or form
or the other, and they have no real sense of what sin is. How do we ever find out about
how sin is? How in the world can grace have
anything to do with ourselves as sinners? Well, we sang that
hymn, and Newton says it just exactly the way it is. He said,
"'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear." If God ever brings us under the
condemnation, the sense of condemnation that we're under before Him and
His justice because of our sins, if He ever breaks us and bows
us and brings us to fall flat on our face and confess ourselves
for the sinners that we are, that's grace. The fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom. He said, "'Twas grace that taught
my heart to fear.'" And men and women want a kind of grace that
bypasses that step. They want a kind of a pasted
on kind of salvation. Add it on to what I am. Add it
on to what I've done. Give me just a little higher
knowledge or a greater understanding. But my friend, salvation is for
sinners. And grace has to make our hearts
fear. I used to hear an old preacher,
and he'd say this, and it's the absolute truth. He said, if you've
never been lost, you've never been saved. If you've never been
found before God as a sinner who's lost and helpless, if you've
never been brought under the burden and condemnation of your
sin, it's out of need that we call out to the Lord Jesus. We can go along in this life
and we can just be so satisfied and so happy with everything
going well and everything looking good and I'm not doing too bad
and all this kind of stuff. When in truth, when grace comes,
grace brings us to the knowledge of what we are. And He does it
by bringing us to the knowledge of who He is. In His light we
see light. Well, how is He? How does grace
present God? Grace does not present God as
being some silver-haired old man who lets all and everybody
do what they want, get away with what they want. Grace sets forth
God in, first of all, His absolute holiness. You say, God's a God
of grace. Yes, He is, but He is holy. And He is not only holy, He is
the God who describes Himself as one who cannot look upon,
that is, not look upon with pleasure and approval any iniquity. He is the God who said, I will
by no means clear the guilty. He is the One who said, the soul
that sinneth shall surely die. And when He brings those things
home to our hearts, when He causes us to read them and believe them
in our hearts and know that what's being said is said about us,
that's grace. Because if He left us in our
blindness, we'd never see. If He left us in our deadness,
You ever hear people say this? You talk about all the awful
things that are going on in this world, and invariably you'll
find somebody, some group who says, well, we don't see anything
wrong with that. Dead people don't see anything
wrong with it. Blind people don't see anything
wrong with sin. But when He comes in grace to
us, He opens our eyes and it's like opening an old door of an
old barn with all its filth and cobwebs and spiders and snakes
and all that stuff. And that awfulness we now know
to be us. He shows us how that all our
efforts and all our decisions and all our choices and all these
things that men turn to, that religion offers us to do in order
to be saved, we find out by grace that that's a lie. Could it be that we're strong? Grace is for those that are without
strength. Or maybe it's that we're good.
He says this is for the ungodly. Romans 5. Or maybe we're upstanding
citizens, moral people. He says this is for sinners. And God in grace does not enable
us to produce righteousness, He in grace gives it. He does
not in grace enable us to produce repentance, but He gives it.
He does not in grace enable us to exercise faith, He gives it. He says, "'Twas grace that taught
my heart to fear." And I can tell you this, when grace makes
our hearts to fear, when God by His Spirit, the Spirit of
all grace, when He makes our heart to fear, there is only
one thing that will calm that fear, that will quench that thirst,
that will put out that fire, that will relieve that conscience,
and that too is grace. He said, in grace, my fear is
relieved. My fear is relieved." That same
old preacher said, he said, you can't believe what you don't
know, you can't believe what you haven't heard any more than
you can come back from where you've never been. And the truth
is, in our day there are just so many people, even people who
claim to believe grace, they've never known what it is to be
sinners before God. But when they do, when God's
elect are found in that state before God, when they break some
and bow some, and men lift their heads, they say, well, God will
never break me. He'll break us and save us. Whatever
point it is that we rebel against Him, He'll break us at that point
and save us, or we'll be damned for all eternity. The Pharisees. They were refusing the baptism
of John. Did they have to be baptized
by John to be saved? Absolutely. Why? Because God
sent Him. Because God ordained that end. Because God had set him before
them as his witness, and to not believe John, to not be baptized
by John, was to fly in the face of God as rebels, and they perished. You see, all these things in
salvation are gifts of God. Ephesians 2, when Paul gets through
in those first three verses or four verses, describing of what
we are by nature, dead in trespass and sin, walked according to
the course of this world, followed the prince of darkness himself,
were by nature the children of wrath even as others. When he
gets through all these things, he says, but God, who is rich
in mercy, For His great love wherewith He loved us, even when
we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace
you are saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit
together in heavenly places in Christ, that in the ages to come
He might show the exceeding riches of His grace." in His kindness toward us through
Christ Jesus. Sounds like to me that all who
are in heaven, all that stand in that hour, saved, rescued,
delivered, made righteous in Christ, they will be like trophies
in God's trophy cabinet. Trophies of His accomplishment,
of His grace, and for His glory. He says, for by grace are you saved. Through faith,
and that not of yourself, it is the gift of God. Now look
over in that second chapter of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians
chapter 2, and listen as Paul continues, he says in verse 9, he said the gospel that we preach
is a mystery. And all that means is, it is
something that requires revelation. Verse 9, he says, But as it is
written, I hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered
into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them
that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto
us by His Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the
deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things
of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?" I don't
know what's in you, I don't know what you're thinking, I don't
know what your hope is, I don't know what your intention, I just
don't know. Even so, the things of God knoweth
no man but the Spirit of God." How are we going to find out
the intentions, the requirements, the will of God? Well, it's written
in this book. But the truth of the matter is,
you and I, if we be blind dead sinners, we may read the Word,
we may read the sentence, we may memorize the page, but we
don't know what the mind of God is. Now listen to him in verse
12. Now we have received, not the
spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God." This work of God's Spirit in
us, taking His Word, revealing Himself to us, is absolutely
essential. He said, "...but the Spirit which
is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given
to us of God." I know this. I know that the grace that we
read about in Holy Scriptures, that's just too much grace for
the self-righteous sinner. Too much grace for religion in
our day. Because it's God's grace. And
this means, what Paul says here, this means that everything we
have is the gift of God's grace. God's sovereign grace. Now, I know that some will say that of material
things. I hear them all the time. The
Lord gave me good health. The Lord gave me a new car. The
Lord gave me a house. The list goes on of material
things. But when salvation is mentioned, A person in our day professing
Christianity, if you ask them, are they a Christian? Oh yes.
But they cannot express to you a hope of salvation that does
not have at the center of it, usually at the first of it, the
cause of it, I. Are you a Christian? Well, yes.
How do you know that? Well, I turn my life around,
or I was baptized, or I was in that meeting, that revival, or
that Sunday school class, whatever it was, and I felt this feeling. I just accepted Jesus, and I
walked down the aisle, and I... That's not grace. Grace always
begins, continues, and ends with God. The revelation that God's elect
receive by the Spirit of God through the gospel is concerning
salvation, the salvation of their souls. They find out that it
is all 100% a gift. He says that we might know the
things that are freely given to us of God. Well, what's given
to us of God? Everything. The gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ. This is the record. God has given
us eternal life. Speaking of Christ, thanks be
unto God for His unspeakable gift. Faith, it is the gift of
God. Repentance, it is the gift of
God. Everything is the gift of God. He is the author and finisher
of this salvation. Alpha and Omega. The everlasting covenant came
from God in grace. Every illustration. The king
made a banquet for his son. What did he say? All things are
ready. You see, salvation by grace is
not a potluck supper to which everyone brings something. No. He says of this banquet for his
son, all things are ready. It's not of works, not of works,
lest any man should what? Boast. I was looking at that
word works this week. It's the Greek word ergon. It's most likely the root word
for that word we have now, ergonomics, which is kind of the science
of making work easy, comfortable. Well, I'll tell you this, there's
no ergonomics in God's gracious salvation. There's no easy way
to contribute to what Christ has done. There's no way of adding
to what He's already said is finished. There's no way in which
you can add in any degree your works to His work, which is the work
of righteousness. You see, Paul writes in Ephesians
1, And he says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ who has already blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in Christ before the world began. And when you come to Romans chapter
9, Paul says this. He speaks of Jacob and Esau Twins
born of the same mother in the same environment. And he says
in Romans 9 chapter 11, he says, for the children being not yet
born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose
of God according to election might stand, not of works, but
of him that calleth." What is election? The choice of God. The choice of grace. He says,
"...it was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger,
as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated."
There's sovereign grace right there. There it is. That's the grace of God. You say, what do you mean the
grace of God? What do you mean sovereign grace? I mean God looking
at a sinner like Jacob, who was equally so, maybe even more so
a sinner than Esau, and saying, Jacob have I loved. But Esau have I hated. In themselves,
he had no reason to love Jacob. He had every reason to hate Esau. But the reason that he loved
Jacob was because of his determined purpose to be gracious to him
in the Lord Jesus Christ. That kind of grates on us, doesn't
it? God's not fair. I don't like your grace. That's
not my grace. That's God's grace. And rather
than beaten against God's solid, rock-hard fist, if you will,
we ought to be asking Him, how were you gracious? How did you
love Esau? I mean, how did you love Jacob?
You're holy and you're just. It's obvious you could hate Esau,
a sinner, but here's another sinner you love, you were gracious
to. How were you gracious to him? How did you love him? In Christ. All grace is in Christ. Now listen
to him. What shall we say then? Is there
unrighteousness with God? God forbid. You see, this is
the kind of place in Scripture where men and women find out
they don't know quite as much about grace as they thought they
did. Or they don't like grace quite as much as they thought
that they once liked grace. Because grace reached down in
Adam's race and chose whom he would to be merciful to and to
be gracious to, and that's his glory. For he saith to Moses,
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." when Paul talks about that same
election, that same choice of God. He speaks of it again in Romans
11 and verse 5. In a time when there was so much
rejection, so much rejection of Christ in the gospel, and
he calls back Elijah for an example. Elijah said in his day, there
was such rejection of his message, he said, I alone am left to worship
God and they seek my life. But you know what God said to
him? It may look bad to you, there may be outward apparent
rejection of me, But I have reserved to myself seven thousand men
who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal." He had a
people. When he sent Paul down to Corinth
to preach that vile and wicked place, Paul became fearful and
could hardly go on, could hardly preach for fear of his life.
God came to him in a vision. He said, you preach. You preach
just exactly what I've told you to preach, for I have much people
in this city. Grace. And then Paul says this
in Romans 11, Even so then, at this present time also there
is a remnant according to the election of grace." God's election is the election
of grace. And the election of God's grace,
He and His grace, in most every vile hour, has a people, has
a remnant. That's who I'm looking for. I'm the most miserable preacher
that ever stood behind a pulpit to preach. Pitiful. But I believe
this book. And I'm going to preach this
book as long as He gives me breath, by His grace, because I'm looking
for that remnant. I know that they can never be
saved any other way, like I could never be. I know they have nothing
good about them like I don't have. I know that they were blind
and dead in trespasses and sin. I know that their wills are set
against God. But that was my case. God the Father gave Himself to
us. He became our Father by His choice,
not ours. He's given His love to us. It
says He first loved us. God the Son loved us and gave
Himself for us. God the Spirit loves us, gives
Himself to us and for us and quickens us. Everything's a gift. God-purposed, God-purchased,
God-produced, God-perpetuates, God-perfects every part of our
salvation freely given, being justified freely, without
a cause in us, by His grace through the redemption that's in Christ
Jesus. Paul continued there in Romans
11, he says, there's a remnant according to the election of
grace, and if it be by grace, then it is no more works, otherwise
grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it
is no more grace, otherwise work is no more work. But where is the grace of God? If we by faith could be enabled
to see, if He'd open our eyes and let us see, hanging on a
cross outside of Jerusalem, is the perfect Son of God, who was
made flesh, came into this world, in order to demonstrate and fully
accomplish God's grace. Because the cross is His righteous
grace. You see, grace isn't God just
looking over our sins. He didn't show grace to Jacob
by just saying, well, he's a pretty good guy. I just think I'll just... indiscriminately choose Him and
let Him go? No. His matters of sin have to
be dealt with. And Christ has come into that
world and He's hanging on that cross, and He's demonstrating
the righteous grace of God because He's dying for the sins of His
people. He's paying that sin debt. He's
giving Himself a ransom in the demonstration of God's grace. So that Paul says in Romans 5,
that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign
through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. He said, glory in this, that
God has made you in Christ, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification
and redemption. Glory in this, that this One
who knew no sin, God has made Him to be sin for us, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him freely. Not only is everything a gift
of God's grace, but also our being enabled to receive it is
a gift of His grace. Lots of folks say, yeah, it's
all a gift, but it's up to us to receive it, or choose it,
or reject it. It's up to our wills to receive
it, or refuse it, or whatever. But you see, that's the glory
of grace. The glory of grace also lies
in this, that it meets our true condition. Grace isn't offering
men and women something depending on their being able to receive
it. I could heap up a million dollars
in a chest. I'd have to borrow it from one
of you, but I could heap up a million dollars in a chest, walk out
there to the cemetery on the hill and say to everyone there,
here it is if you'll receive it. Grace meets our inability. Grace
meets our deadness, our unwillingness, and the Spirit of God. He said
we've received the Spirit of God, and by that we know the
things that are freely given to us. I could never see Him if He did
not in grace give me the eyes of faith. If He did not reveal,
if He did not give me birth from above, if He did not raise me
from spiritual death, I'd not know Him, I'd not receive Him,
I'd not want Him. How does a dead person reach
out and take a gift? Paul says, "...and you He hath
quickened." How do natural men receive spiritual things? He
said, the natural men receive them, not the things of God,
because they are spiritually discerned. He said, but God hath
revealed them to us. How do enemies go to God? He
reconciles. How do lovers of pleasure, darkness,
get light? He shines into our hearts. How
did the unwilling come to God? They're made willing in the day
of His power. That's grace. We don't love God by nature.
He said, herein is love, not that we love God, but that He
loved us. And in love, because He first loved us, we
love Him. We don't seek God. What does
grace do? Grace seeks us. The shepherd
seeks the sheep. And then everything we're unable
to know or understand. That's what he said, you know,
let a man glory in this, that he knows me and understands of
my lovingkindness, judgment, righteousness. Paul said, and we have received
the Spirit of God that we might know." There are people who say, you can't
know. They must not have ever read the Bible. What a diminishing
thing that is to the Spirit of God. He said, we've received
of the Spirit of God that we might know. John said, we know
we pass from death unto life. Isn't that salvation? Because
we love the brethren. He's given to us, John said,
an understanding that we may know Him that is true. How do
we know though? By grace. Just God's grace. If you know anything about God,
if you have hope of salvation in Him, if He's revealed His
Word to you, I'm not talking about every page, every phrase,
every word, But I mean the message of the gospel, that salvation
is of the Lord, it's in Christ, it's of His righteousness, imputed
to us, not our works of righteousness. That's by grace. How in the world could you ever
boast on that? Richard, if I know everything
just because you told me, we know by grace. We know by grace. Know it's all
of God. All in the Lord Jesus Christ. All of His grace. All for His
glory. And that knowledge humbles us
before God. And we know that we did not do
this or we did not find this out on our own. But God came
to where we are and stopped us in our tracks. He intercepted
us and revealed Himself to us. Paul said, "...for whom maketh
thee to differ from another? And what dost thou have that
thou didst not receive? Now if you received it, why do
you glory as if you received it not?" I'm not going to be
saying, I'm saved by grace. One minute, the next thing you
know I'm bragging on what I've done. In Romans 3 he says, where is
boasting then? It's excluded. Then Paul in Galatians
2, I do not frustrate the grace of God. For if righteousness
come by the law, then Christ is dead and vain. God's people. Praise the glory
of God's grace. As a matter of fact, worshiping
God is praising the glory of God's grace. Praising the Lord
Jesus Christ, who through His righteous death on that cross
is all of God's grace to us. And I'll tell you this, Those who are saved by grace,
they won't be waiting to do it in eternity. They'll begin in
time to praise the glory of God's grace. That excludes all boasting
in us and gives all glory to Him. Father, we ask at this hour
that You might be pleased to accomplish that work in the hearts
of your people, which is based on that work which you've already
accomplished in your son on that cross. Get glory unto yourself. Stain
our pride that we may behold the glory of your grace. We thank you for that grace that
makes our hearts to fear. and also brings us relief, gives
us the knowledge of salvation in Christ Jesus. We thank you
and we pray in His name. Amen.