Look at the grace of God in your
life. It'll set you apart. You began to serve him because
you love him. Life will get much better because
you'll stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder
that he could love you. Do you know why I preach grace
every Sunday? Every time I preach, I preach
grace because it's grace. It's grace alone. You ought to
put a period after Jesus Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved. Salvation is all in him. It's
not in you. If you can be saved any other
way and made righteous any other way than through Jesus Christ,
Christ didn't do much. He died in vain. It was for nothing. Don't you get it? God sent his
only begotten son into the world to save you on purpose, for a
purpose, hallelujah. Every Christian in here is engaged
to Jesus Christ. There's a great marriage supper
coming. And it's not going to be here
comes the bride, but here comes the groom. All eyes are going
to be on him. If it's by grace, then it's not
by law, period. There's no wiggle worm here.
Oh, but you know, pastor, don't you think it's important to be
baptized? How important is it? It's this important. If you are
being immersed in water to show that you believe and have trusted
that Christ died in your stead, in your room, took your place,
but if you're trusting in that water, that's a hellish thing.
You'll perish in your sins. If after I'm gone, You turn to
another gospel than I preached unto you, I will haunt you. I marvel, I'm astonished at you. You see, I remember when you
came in 35 East Huron with blistered lips and a thick tongue because
you couldn't put down the crack pipe. I remember the heroin addiction. I remember the church entity
and the self-righteousness that you had. And instead of you coming
over here and being changed, you tried to change us. I remember
all of that. And then Jesus came and in power
quickened you and made you alive. There's only one true gospel.
It's the gospel of propitiation. It's the gospel of substitution. It's the gospel of the blood.
It's the gospel of he took my place. It's the gospel of redemption. It's the gospel of atonement.
It's not Christ plus baptism, Christ plus the Lord's Supper,
Christ plus your this or that. You have nothing to do with your
salvation. He saved you by himself. He said,
well, you know, I cooperated. Not until he worked on your willer.
He changed your willer and instead of rejection, you became a willing
servant of Jesus Christ. You leave this grace gospel,
you're in a heap of trouble. Because you are not what you
pretend you are. You have those secret thoughts
when you're alone. When nobody's looking, you have
that perverted flesh. And if it's not by grace, you
and I are goners. Why are you looking at me that
way? It's grace alone. God's serious
about this business of sending his son. Let me tell you this. That was no light thing. That
day when Jesus left heaven, I don't know what day that was exactly.
But I do know God the Father. There goes my boy. There goes my son. My only begotten son. He's the
apple of my eye. And the foxes have their holes
and the birds have their nests. But my boy has no place to lay
his head. What's he doing down here? Why
did you send him? I sent him to be the substitute
for worthless worms. Nobody, sinners, unrighteous
and ungodly. How we sit around and complain
and murmur. We have all this stuff. That's
all it is, stuff. just stuff and don't have any
joy or peace or happiness. It's because we get to really
thinking we're something when we're nothing. We're nothing.