All right. Let's go ahead and
get back into our study that we've been in. We're still looking at the doctrine
of grace. As I mentioned a couple of weeks
ago, we are kind of concluding this, bringing it kind of down
to a slow halt. But there was a few concluding
remarks that I wanted to make of Grace, just kind of almost
a scattergun approach at this, just a few other verses and different
things that I'd like to reiterate. But as I was studying this week,
going over my verses and everything, Looking, I've been kind of reading
through this book, the anti-gospel by, depending on where you come
from, the anti-gospel or the anti-gospels. Anti or anti. depends on what side of the river
you're from. Anyway, I've been reading this book, The Anti-Gospel,
by Edward Hendry, and it's a very excellent book. If you guys look
it up on Amazon or somewhere like that, you can buy it off
of there. It's an excellent book. Edward
calls into Larry's talks to you on Mondays and they visit back
and forth and he's also the guy that wrote the greatest lie on
earth about the flat earth. Anyway, great book, excellent
job, very very well done and very truthful and I appreciate
the work that he did on this. Anyway, I was reading through
here and I wanted to read a couple of paragraphs in this because
I think this really kind of says a lot of what we've been talking
about over the last many, many weeks. We began this whole entire
series on the doctrine of grace. And when I say doctrine of grace,
I believe it's just one large doctrine. And we categorize it
in sub-doctrines like total depravity or unconditional election and
things like that. But all of that basically falls
underneath the grace of God. And at the heart of this, and
I've said this ever since I've come to know these truths and
everything, I've always contended that the doctrine of grace is
the gospel. uh... and a lot of guys you know
may disagree with that they say you know you can't take a theological
system five points and say that's the gospel you've relegated it
to five points while we went through the five points we've
seen that the doctrine of grace entails more than just those
five points however those five points are pretty exhaustive
in covering the whole gamut of god's work especially whenever
you, I think it ought to really be tulips. At the end there should
be an S there with God's sovereignty attached in that, but that's
where I started this whole thing out is with sovereignty. You don't want to put the S on
the front, then it'd be stulips. and we don't make sense so we
don't want to do still works which is due to lips and I'm
not not saying God's a sovereignty isn't the most important but
anyway just to make the a acronym work right anyway a God's sovereignty
is what we started with and underneath that sovereignty works his grace
And there we find that man is totally depraved and that is
the doctrine of Scripture. But we also find that in total
depravity that we cannot do anything, thus the need for grace. And
so grace comes in, now it was already there, it was already
given by our experience of this. Grace comes in whenever men are
undeserving, unable, and destitute and cannot do anything for themselves.
That's when grace is needed. And so God's grace came in, if
you allow me, the term came in like a flood. It came in into
a world that was fallen, that was destitute. But brethren,
don't think that God's grace was a secondary issue or an afterthought
of God. God's grace was primary before
even anyone had fallen. Matter of fact, The whole purpose
of God sending Adam to be the representative that would bring
sin and death into this world and created him to be such was
so that he would be glorified in His grace. and in the other
things as well, but we're going to see primarily the gospel is
the gospel of God's grace. And so whether it's total depravity,
whether it's unconditional election, which is grace, whether it's
limited atonement, which is grace, whether it's irresistible grace,
which is grace, whether it's preservation, perseverance, it's
all grace. And so that permeates a lot of
it. But as we started looking last
week, we've seen that grace is also God's favor. It's God's
forgiving mercy. We also see, and I'm going to
talk a little bit about this in this quote here, it is the
gospel. is grace in and of itself, that
God has given us this good news. We see that the gifts that God
gives us is grace. Eternal life itself is grace.
We find that it's the source of our salvation. that it's the
source of the call of God upon us, whether it be that eternal
call, whether it be that timely call, whether it be a call to
service, that's all part of God's grace. We see that grace is the
source of our faith. We don't have faith apart from
God's grace. We've seen that last week or
the week before. Justification or acquittal or being made right
before God stems from His grace. We see that forgiveness and consolation
both was given to us in God's grace. Forgiveness of sins. God forgave us of those sins,
but then he turned around and give us consolation that he would
never remember those sins, never bring those sins up. And that,
that is a hope for us to know that we will never stand before
God wanting. And so He's given us a consolation. We learn that grace is all-abundant. We learn that grace is all-sufficient.
We learn that grace is glorious. that it is great grace. We learned
that this grace has a manifold, is a manifold in its working. We've seen last week also that
grace is rich and that grace is undeserved. Now, before we
get into what I want to talk about today, I want to read a
couple of paragraphs out of Brother Hendry's book here, where he
talks about grace. And I think he pulls this out,
and for those who disagree, that says that the gospel is about
the death, burial, and resurrection. Now, that's part of the gospel,
okay? And in Corinthians when Paul brings that up, you know,
he is summarizing the gospel But if you remember he says you
have Christ died according to the God Scriptures how he was
buried and how he raised according to the scriptures. So there is
scriptures that discuss his death and his resurrection and how
that equates to us as good news and Okay? And so all of this
falls, I believe, under grace. And so whenever I say that the
doctrines of grace is the gospel, I'm not talking about John Calvin
and his institutes. I'm not talking about Martin
Luther. I'm not talking about any Reformers. I'm not talking
about any theologies that are out there that are written up
by man. And I'm not necessarily talking about TULIP. Okay, I'm
talking about the gospel that we have given to us in Scripture
revealed by God is the gospel of grace. And in that entails
death, burial, resurrection, imputation, atonement, all these
things, preservation. All those things come under this. And I think Brother Hendry worded
it very well in here and brought out some points that I think
some people don't really necessarily think about. He says, and this
is actually in chapter one at the very beginning of the book,
he says, the anti-gospel was manifested by false teachers
during the lives of the apostles. Paul warned in the book of Acts
that grievous spiritual wolves would enter in among the Christian
believers and pervert the gospel. Paul made clear that the true
gospel that he preached was received of the Lord Jesus and is in fact
the quote gospel of the grace of God. So the gospel is the
good news about the grace of God. And he says, Paul explicitly
stated that the true gospel is based upon God's sovereign grace. He even refers to the gospel
as the word of His grace. And I'm glad he wrote that because
I've kind of looked at that from a different angle before. And
really what he says right here is true and I think is actually
the plainer meaning than what I even thought it was. And sometimes
we look at things too complicated and just let the simple things
say what the simple thing says. He says, for Paul to clearly
label the gospel as gospel of the grace of God and describe
it as the word of his grace indicates that God's grace is the fundamental
feature of the gospel. The false gospel about which
Paul was warning must necessarily be founded upon something other
than God's sovereign grace. So the anti or the opposite gospel
would be something other than sovereign grace. Okay, that's basically what he's
saying. And so now he quotes the scripture, he says, quoting
Paul in Acts, he says, But none of these things move me, neither
count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course
with joy and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus,
to testify, here it is, the gospel of the grace of God. So we as
preachers and teachers, we as People of God, we are to declare
and testify of the Gospel, good news, of the grace of God. Okay? He says, "'And now, behold,
I know that ye all among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom
of God shall see my face no more. Wherefore, I take you to record
this day that I am pure from the blood of all men, for I have
not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. Take
heed, therefore, unto yourselves and to all the flock over which
the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church
of God which He hath purchased with His own blood. And here
it is, for I know this, that after my departing shall grievous
wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your
own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away
disciples after them. Therefore watch and remember
that by the space of three years I cease not to warn everyone
day and night with tears. And now, brethren, I commend
you to God and to the word of His grace which is able to build
you up and give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified."
And so Paul here is making clear that the gospel is the gospel
of the grace of God and that the word that we speak or the
word that we teach or His word is the word about His grace.
Now, over a couple of pages at the end of chapter 1, Brother
Henry goes on to say this, he says, The grace of God is the
very heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Anyone who preaches anything
else is under a curse. In the midst of explaining that
the true gospel is based upon the grace of God, Paul emphasized
by repeating it twice that any man who preaches any other gospel
is under a curse from God. Those are strong words, brothers
and sisters. But this is the truth of the
Scripture. Galatians chapter 1. We read this a few weeks ago. But though we or an angel from
heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have
preached unto you, let him be accursed." This is the Apostle Paul saying
anybody who will come and would preach anything than what has
been revealed in these scriptures, the word of grace, and preach
an anti gospel which is not the gospel of grace. He says let
him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now
again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that
ye have received, let him be accursed." Now, I say that because
of this. I get asked all the time, you
know, why do you all name your church Sovereign Grace Baptist
Church? Why do you all talk about Sovereign
Grace so much? Why do you pump up a theological
system at the expense of everything else in the Scriptures? The Scriptures
talk about a whole lot of other things. Why not talk about Jesus
Christ? Why are you talking about a theological
system of sovereign grace? Well, brethren, if you're going
to talk about Jesus Christ, you're going to talk about sovereign
grace because the gospel of Jesus Christ is the gospel of the grace
of God. And there's only one kind of
grace of God, and that is sovereign. So the reason, and you know,
now that wasn't how, we didn't decipher all that out and name
our church that because of that way back in the day. That was
all because it, you know, we decided, our brother Carlson
and Domer and their families, whenever they got together, you
know, they decided that that was what they were gonna do.
And we've discussed it even since then, you know, to distinguish
ourselves. We're not just any regular Baptist
church. We're a Baptist church who believes
that the gospel is the sovereign grace of God. And that's what
we preach here. The gospel we preach here, and
I pray hopefully will be preached here long after I'm gone, if
the Lord should tarry, would be that sovereign grace gospel. And so it isn't promoting a theological
system or a reform or anything like that or a seminary or any
kind of a doctrinal system. acrostic, acronym I mean, it
is all about looking at the whole of Scripture and seeing that
the gospel is all about man being undeserved and God sovereignly
bestowing grace upon whom He will. And that is the gospel. And as Paul said, if anyone preaches
a grace gospel that is not a sovereign grace gospel, If anybody preaches
a grace gospel that doesn't entail Christ at the center and God
being the governor of that grace and who is the recipient of it,
then that is not the true gospel. It's an anti-gospel. and let
them be a curse. They're preaching a cursed gospel. And just as a side note, for
anybody here and for anybody watching or anybody listening
later on down the line, that's one of the reasons why we don't
accept baptisms from Armenian churches. They do not preach
the gospel as the scriptures declare it. And thus, anything
that they do, anything that they you know, are involved in is
not legitimate because it is a curse. They are preaching a
cursed gospel. They are not a gospel church,
and thus being not a gospel church, they have no right from Christ
to baptize anybody. And so that's why we reject those
baptisms, because they preach and hold and perpetuate a cursed
gospel. Now, with that being said, We
look at all the things that we've talked about over the last few
weeks, and we see that the gospel, the good news, is more, like
I said, than just that little nutshell. It's all about, because
I mean, face it, there are so many people out there that believe
Jesus died, was buried, and was resurrected. But yet they adamantly,
adamantly oppose the sovereign grace of God to give the benefits
of all of what Christ did to those people. Matter of fact,
there are even people who believe the doctrines of grace that even
hold that Jesus died for everybody. in a certain sense or another.
And that's just crazy. We can go through all the kind
of word wrangling that we want to do, but the Gospel from cover
to cover is that God gives grace and Christ secures everything
that God does under grace. And that it is applied effectually
and that the end result will be everyone for whom God gave
to the sun before the foundation of the world will be gathered
around them there, worshiping them forever and ever and ever."
It takes a long trip through time. A lot of things that takes
place during this time period. But brethren, there will be,
we just sang a while ago, this God keeps His covenant. And He covenanted with the Son
before ever Adam was made. And that covenant will stand
after everything has been removed. And a new heaven and a new earth
will be here wherein dwells righteousness, wherein all the people of God
will be around the throne of God, worshiping God alone for
His sovereign grace. And so that's why we're adamant
about that here. That's why we preach that here. It is good news to us. It is
good news to us. Not because we're better than
everybody else because we're elect. Brethren, it's not that. We don't preach a puffed up gospel
of election. Election is true, election is
precious, but let's not let election puff up our head to think that
we're better than everybody else. And I see that so often on the
internet, guys treating reprobates like they're nothing, you know?
Just, you know, total disregard as if we are something special.
The only thing that makes us special, the only thing that
causes us to differ is the sovereign grace of God. It's Christ Jesus'
work for us and in us that makes us anything of anything. And
so we should never be puffed up in the fact that we should
look at this gospel and say, you know, that I'm deserving
of this, that I'm better than anybody else because of this.
You know, I've seen an email, kind of went through the forums
this week on a couple that I hit and missed, looked at, and talking
about the death of Hugh Hefner. And, uh, I was pleased to see
a couple of the brothers, uh, responding to the guy that kind
of said, you know, he got what he deserved and all that kind
of stuff respond, you know, there before the grace of God go I,
you know, that, uh, if it wasn't for God making me to differ,
I could be a Hugh Hefner. I could be, you know, a Stalin
or a Mao or, you know, anything. I could be any of those things.
I could be a Michael Smith. The Michael Smith that no one
has ever seen before, you know, if it wasn't for the grace of
God. So that's why, and I want to just start with that, I mean
that's, I thought that was good, what Brother Hendry said, and
kind of put that into perspective about where all we've been in
this series and everything. It just kind of solidified in
my mind some of the things that I've seen, at least how I've
felt about the scriptures and about this gospel, particularly
Sovereign Grace. That, you know, While I first
came into it, I may have been following after a few theologians
and everything, but it was good to see that the Lord quickly
caused me to lose my enamoration for men and look to His Word
alone. And since then, And I'm not saying I know everything.
I'm not saying I'm correct on everything. But since then, everything
has fallen into place a lot better than listening to all these mixed
up things of man. Everybody disagreeing with each
other and one saying one thing, one saying another, and both
of them being on the same platform in the same conference. And this
one disagrees with this one, but they're going to pat each
other on the back saying, oh, we're up here to say the same
thing. Well, no, you're not. Not really. But anyway, very
important thing. And I'm thankful that He's given
us to be able to come and to gather around His Word. I'm thankful
that He's given us a heart, as far as I know all of you here,
that He's given you a heart for the true Gospel. and a heart
and a mind that wants to defend that and stand for that and not
compromise and not back down as we sang in that hymn, not
be ashamed of Christ, but to boldly proclaim that. Well, turn
with me if you would over to Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter
6. Now, I want us to look at a few other
things about grace this morning. One of the things we find in
Romans 6 and verse 14. Let's go down to Romans 6 and
verse 14. It says, for sin shall not have
dominion over you, for ye are not under the law but under grace."
So the child of grace is under grace and not under law. Now what does that mean? I know
a lot of people have a hard time understanding some of these arguments
of Paul in Romans, the first part of Romans. What does it
mean that ye are not under the law but under grace? Does that
mean that we're lawless and we can just do whatever we want
to do? I can just go out and live in
a debauchery and it's okay, I'm under grace and not under law.
Well, Paul says that shall we sin because we are not under
the law but under grace. God forbid, that's what verse
15 says. So obviously, just within the context of this passage,
it's not saying that we're lawless people. And we can just live
lawless. And we can just do whatever we
want to do. Okay? What it's saying is that we are
not under the law, meaning we're not under its condemnation. We're
not under its judgment. We're not under its rigorous
demands but we're under grace. We're not under a covenant that
is a covenant of works, but we're under a covenant which is a covenant
of grace. The child of grace is not under
the law to keep the law, not a do this and live thing. He's
under the gospel of grace. A couple weeks ago when we were
over in Delaware, Brother Denny Parks was given a message in
Galatians, and the phrase that he used was really good. He says,
for the child of grace, it's not do this and live, but live
and do. Because we live, we do. And we
talked about that in Galatians, that there's that inward principle
that's given to us. And so we have the laws of God
written upon our heart. We have Him inside of us causing
us to willing to do His good pleasure. He is in us, causing
us to walk in His statutes. He's given us a renewed mind.
He's given us these things that desire holiness, desires righteousness,
desires the things of God and not the things of the world,
and that He desires to walk rightly before God. So it comes from
inside and not outside. It's not I've got to look at
these things and follow my tables of stone here that I've got carved
out for me to follow and if I do this then everything's going
to be alright. No, it's something that's a work inwardly and we
establish the law because He's in us. But the believers are
under grace. Meaning that the principle over
us, the covenant that's over us is one of grace, one of favor. Remember, that was one of the
definitions of grace was favor. God bestows a favor on us or
He gives us an ability to do something that we couldn't normally
do. We couldn't do the things or want the things of God, but
God in His favor has given us a spiritual mind to desire the
things of the Spirit of God. And so we see that we are under
Grace. We come under the auspices of
grace. We come under the covenant of
grace. We come under the workings of grace and grace alone. It's
never about what we do, it's all about what is given to us.
It's always a give, give, give, give, but it's not us giving
to the Lord, it's the Lord giving to us. And see, that is totally
opposite of every religion in the world. every religion, every
denomination, even amongst the umbrella of quote-unquote Christianity,
the difference between sovereign grace gospel and all the accursed
gospels is that at the heart of sovereign grace it's us being
given to, and everything else it's us given to Him. Now that's
not to say that we're not to give praise and to worship and
honor and those things like that. But brethren, in all other religions
and denominations out there, it's always the works of man
to gain access or to gain acceptance or keep acceptance. And so that's
what sets the gospel of grace apart. Because grace doesn't
have anything to do with I.O. Grace doesn't have anything to
do with a wage. See, the Bible is very clear
about that. Paul talked about that. That he said that if you
work to get something, then that's a wage. And the wages is something that is deserved,
right? But grace is something that's undeserved. Grace is something
that's given despite what you've done, what you do, or what you
will do. Grace gives anyway. So grace
is all about giving and we are under that. We are under a giving,
gracious gospel. And I'm glad. I'm glad that's
how it is. Now pride, self-righteousness
wants to puff up. You know, whenever I'm at work,
I want to do it myself. You know, whenever I go in and
work on a broke down machine, now my boss, he's different than
me. He's ready to start calling the tech support guy on the other
line as we're walking in the building before we even look.
I mean, it may be as simple as, boom, a blown fuse is right there,
and you slap it in and walk out the door. Now, he's wanting to
call the tech support guy and have him already on the line
as we're walking in. And that's okay. I mean, if he
wants to do it that way, that's all right. I'm not knocking him
or anything, but he just does things different. I, I'm a little
more prideful. I'm the service guy. I should
know how to fix things. And so when I walk in, I don't
want to call somebody to tell them, can you hold my hand and
tell me how to do this. I want to get in and figure it
out. That's pride and self-righteousness. And a lot of times that's how
it works in religion. We don't want to be freely given. We don't want to admit that there
is absolutely nothing that we can do. As a matter of fact,
we're just completely destitute and unable to do. We don't want
to hear that. I don't want to hear that I need
tech support's help. But I do sometimes need that. When it comes to the Scriptures,
it isn't just a sometimes, it's an all the time. If it isn't
grace, then it's works. And the Bible says that we are
saved by grace. So if you want to work, if you
want self-righteous works, if you want self-righteous things,
then you can be under works. But Paul said, if you do that,
then you're not under grace because grace is no more grace in that
sense. And it just so happens that God's salvation is by grace
alone. So whatever you're going to get
from that over there isn't going to be God's salvation. We are under grace. So the child
of grace is under grace. So there's another aspect of
grace. Is it something that we come under? That we bask in? That we glory in? We glory in
the fact that God has given us grace and not work to do? Can you imagine if it was that
way? I mean, honestly, knowing yourself
and knowing your track record. You know, at work we have Excel
spreadsheets and QuickBooks and we can go to a customer and we
can pull up that customer and it puts out a spreadsheet and
it shows every transaction, every action that has been done with
that customer, how many times they've been PMed, it shows how
many times that they've been billed, what they've been billed,
what they pay, what they don't pay. It shows everything about
that and you can go and see their track or there's some customers
of ours that their track record isn't very good. They order service
or they'll order supplies and may not pay for six, nine months. And, you know, then something
happens again in six or nine months and they want me to come
out and the office says, I'm sorry, we can't send Mike out
there until you pay what you owe us from the last time he
was out there. And when he gets there, we need to check for what
he's going to do today. And so they, that's because they
have a track record. Can you imagine if we picked
up our track records from the time we were born to the day
and spread that out and look, if God required or if we were
under law, where would we line up? Because if you remember,
the Scriptures say that if we fail to keep it in all points, we've not kept it at all. Has
your track record been good enough? No, none of us has. That right
there ought to smash any self-righteous pride that we should have. We're under grace. Praise the
Lord. Turn with me to John chapter
1. It still comes after Luke, right?
John 1. Look at v. 14. As a matter of fact, let's back
up to v. 12. To them gave He power to become
the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor
of the will of man, but of God." We were born of the will of God.
Okay? Sovereign grace. The Gospel.
The un-accursed Gospel. V. 14, And the Word was made
flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory
as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Jesus Christ is full of
grace and full of truth. Now look at verse 15 and 16.
John bare witness of him and cried saying this was he of whom
I spake he that cometh after me is preferred before me for
he was before me. Here it is verse 16. And of his
fullness, Christ's fullness, have all we received and grace
for grace. For the law was given by Moses,
but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. So brethren, we have
received grace. We didn't earn grace. We didn't
buy grace. Okay? We didn't ask for grace. None
of us ask for grace. Now, once we were quickened,
brought to our senses of who we are in Adam, our need for
Christ, we ask for grace. But is that not an action of
one who's already received grace? We've received grace to even
know that we need grace. He says, and of His fullness
have all we received for grace. We have received His grace. There is not a thing that we
can do to keep it from coming. There's not anything that we
could do to make it happen. We've used this illustration
here a lot of times about Brother Larry giving me the black
eye. If he gives me a black eye, I received a black eye. I didn't
ask for it. I didn't want it. I didn't do
anything for it. Well, maybe. But whenever he,
more than likely, But whenever he gives me the black eye, I
received it and I didn't do anything for it. OK, I know that's kind
of I probably need to come up with a better illustration. No
one's called me out on that illustration yet, at least in my face. They
might have done it behind my back, but I need to come up with
a better illustration. But the gift. that is given to us is not something
that we ask for. If we ask for it, it's not a
gift, right? If we work for it, it's not a gift. Now, a lot of
times, you know, parents will ask their kids, well, what would
you like for your birthday or all that kind of stuff, you know?
And the kid will tell them what they want for their birthday.
And so whenever they get that gift, it really isn't a gift
because they asked for it. Now, I guess you could say it's
a gift because I initiated it. In this instance, though, the
gift is given before creation ever began. You don't have to turn there,
but let me just remind you of our verses of Scripture that
we wear out quite often here. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be
holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated
us under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." The gift of grace was given to
us before the foundation of the world, before we were ever in
Adam, before we were ever breathing, before we ever transgressed one
law of God, God's grace was given to us. That's why I hold not
only to superlapsarianism, but hyper-superlapsarianism. That's
why I hold to eternal justification. The only way that I can be before
Him, holy and without blame, and see it's in love. How long has He loved us? He's
loved us with an everlasting love. He gifted us with grace before
the foundation of the world that we would receive that grace,
not only in eternity, but in time. In eternity, He gifted
us that grace and we received it, whatever we were, whatever
we are. I don't know how it all works.
I know the Bible said that we have a life that's hid with Christ
in God, that we are seated in heavenly places with him. I know
that the Bible says that he gave us to Christ and that we were
put into him before the foundation of the world. So there was, and
that there were names written in the Lamb's book of life before
the foundation of the world. And so there was some kind of
a love, a relation, a giving, a receiving before the foundation
of the world. Now, I know everybody wants to
say, well, that was in the purpose of God. I agree. That also is
in the purpose of God. But to me, it seems like there's
more to it than that. I mean, I'll agree with you it's
in the purpose of God. I'm not going to, you know, call
you down for that. But there seems to be more to
that than that. That's why the old school Baptist
talked about an eternal vital union. There was a real living
union of life between us and Christ. His life is our life. That eternal life that He gives
to us is the life that we had in Him hidden. in Him, before
the foundation of the world, and that He put that life into
this vessel of clay in time at quickening. But that life is
eternal. Brother Larry's pointed out many
times, life is, I mean, eternal does not start at any point,
that it goes just as far back as it goes forward. So if I have eternal life given
to me in time, then that means that that life was before and
it will continue on forever. Well, what life was that? Well,
it was Christ's life. Well, yes, but the Bible also
says it's our life. Our life was hid in Christ. Christ who is your life, right?
Now, what does that mean? If it's our life, but it's Christ's
life that is our life, what does that mean? Well, to me, that
sounds like that we are united with Christ, that we are one
with Christ, right? We are one as He is one. Didn't
He pray to the Father? I pray that they'll be one as
we are one. Just as Christ is one with the
Father, we're one with Him now. How are you going to distinguish
that separation? By name? As I look at the Scripture, the
only thing I can see that separates is name because the life is the
same, the power is the same, the glory is the same. Everything
is the same. Everything is one. The Father, the Word, and the
Holy Spirit, these three are one. There is no separating them. Well, the Bible says that we're
just like that with Christ, if we are His. We receive that, and we receive
that before we could even have an option to receive that. We
receive that as the recipients of grace in the eternal, vital
union based upon the eternal covenant. We've received that. Let's look at a couple more verses
here before we take a break. Turn with me, if you would, back
to Romans 5. So we're under the grace of God. We have received the grace of
God. But in Romans 5, We find another aspect of the
believer and the relationship to grace. Romans 5. Let's just start on
verse 1 to get kind of what we're talking about. Therefore being
justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ by whom Jesus Christ. Also, we have access
by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope
of the glory of God. So the believer's relationship
to grace in this instance is that grace causes us to stand. by whom also we have access by
faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope
of the glory of God." Now we talked about preservation and
perseverance. Our standing in the faith, our
standing, our holding, our keeping, our long-suffering, Our patience,
our holding out to the end. There's probably more phrases
that I'm missing. We stand because of grace. One of the effects, one of the things that the relationship
between grace and the believer is that it causes us to stand,
and in so doing so, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. You want to know why I hope in
Christ alone for my salvation? Because I've been given grace
to stand in that. Why don't I worry about all the
works that I'm missing or the works that I've messed up, that
I tried to do but messed up? Well, because I've been given
grace to stand in imputed righteousness. I've been given grace to stand
on the finished works of Christ and not on my performance and
activity. My performance and activity waxes and wanes. My activity is, at the very best,
sketchy. But because of grace, we are given faith and we stand
in the hope of the glory of God. Look with me, if you would, over
to 2 Corinthians. for the English that may be watching
2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 9 and verse 8. We
find another relationship of the believer and grace. Not only are we given grace to
stand, But in verse eight we find, and God is able to make
all grace abound toward you, that ye always having all sufficiency
in all things may abound to every good work. Now, brothers, sisters,
if that isn't a promise that we're doing all that God wants
us to do, Have you ever heard someone say that? I've said that.
I still say that because of my stupidity sometimes. I'll slip
and say things that are unbiblical. But I just wasn't doing God's
will. I need to get back right with
God. All these things that we say
that are, you know, as if God, number one, wasn't in control
and as if it was thwarting the work of God. Let God do this. God wants to do this if you'll
only let Him. If you'll only get out of the way. Let go and
let God. He says, God is able Now there's a promise. God is
able. It speaks of His strength. It
speaks of His purpose. God is able to make. That speaks of His power, His
purpose, His strength. God is able to make you. Now, you isn't there, but that's
implied. To make all grace abound toward
you. If you want to say it backwards,
to make you abound in all grace. God is able to make all grace
abound toward you, that ye, so that you, always having all sufficiency
in all things may abound to every good work." Now whenever we all get to heaven,
is there going to be things that we were supposed to have done
but didn't? That's a prevailing theology
even amongst Calvinists. Doctrines of Grace, believers. That we are going to get to heaven
and going to be standing before a judgment seat. And there are
going to be wood, hay, and stubble. And there's going to be gold
and precious jewels. That some things are going to
make it through the fire. Some are going to be burned up.
Then we're going to be given rewards. We'll be taken and given
away. Have you ever thought that maybe
that might be now during this lifetime? Have you ever thought of that
the wood, hay and stubble and the costly other things might
be the different types of works that God has us to do? Some of
them are great, some of them are not so great. Have you ever
thought that there are vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor?
Well, there are also works of honor and works of dishonor,
and God has established both of them, purposed both of them,
and by providence brings both of them about for His purposes. But when I look at the scriptures
right here, it says, and when we went through preservation,
we read a lot more, but it says right here that God is able to
make all grace abound so that having all sufficiency in all
things, we may abound to every good work. It don't sound like
we're going to miss any good works. I guess, you know, the guys that
keep asking me to give them scriptural reference to my little phrase
that we're going to sin every sin that Christ died for and
we're going to do every work that God ordained for us, no
more, no less. No more, no less on the sin.
No more, no less on the good works. Why? Because He's ordained every
good work. that we should walk in them.
And that He has supplied all grace to abound towards us in
all things, so that we may abound to every good work." So what's
the relationship of the grace to the believer in this that
we might abound? Alright, 2 Timothy chapter 2
and verse 1. It says, Thou therefore, my son. Now again, remember, sometimes
we forget kind of the whole who's writing to who and what's the
purpose of the writing and all this kind of stuff. A lot of
times that tells us a lot of things about what's going on
in the context. Remember, this is the second
epistle that Paul has written to the pastor Timothy. and giving him instructions on
his pastoral duties as the overseer of the church. It's in Ephesus,
right? He had Ephesus, brother? Chapter 2, verse 1, Thou therefore,
my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and
the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the
same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach
others also. Thou therefore endure hardness
as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Thou therefore, my son, be strong
in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." How can we be strong
in something that is freely given to us outside of us? What is
Paul telling him, admonishing him, encouraging him, instructing
him to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus? Got any thoughts on that, bro?
I don't want to put you on the spot, but kind of am. That's kind of how I look
at it. I look at it as he's telling him to preach, be strong in the
preaching of the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Again, remember,
Paul's already told us in other places that the gospel is the
gospel of grace, The word is the word of grace. Whenever we
read this is the word of his grace in Christ Jesus. And here he's telling Timothy,
my son be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou has
heard of me, meaning that Paul himself has taught these things
about grace to Timothy. He says, as thou hast heard of
me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to fateful men
who shall be able to teach others also. So one of the things as
pastors, we are to commit to fateful men this teaching of
God's sovereign grace. Now, I'm not much on seminaries
and things like that, but brothers, listen, if there's men in a church
that gathers together and a pastor gathers with some of those men
and teaches these things to them and everything, I can't really
say anything about that. Because this right here seems
to be, along with some of the other admonitions that Paul gives
about the older men teaching the younger men and things like
that, that there's an admonition that is given to do such a thing.
That doesn't mean that the pastor is better than them, it's just
that's the role that God has given is to teach these things
to faithful men. And again, that word faithful
men isn't how good they are, but men that God has given them
to be faithful to the studying of God's Word. And you can probably
tell this whenever you talk to people and see people. There
are some men who honestly open up the Word of God and they desire
to know what this says and they're teachable. They want to learn. If I'm wrong, I want to, yeah,
tell me. I want to go back and look at
these things and see whether these things be true or not. I'm in a conversation now with
a guy over email who has posted some things about, to me, has
asked me some questions about Christ's death. And some of these
terms, world and all and all like that. And he's brought up
some pretty good points that he's studied out that I have
not looked at yet. And I told him, I said, you know,
hey, I'll go back and look at these things. And I posited some
things to him. And he said the same thing. Hey,
that brings up some things. I'm going to go back and look
at that. Faithful men and women will be ones who are faithful
to look to God's Word. The Bereans were more noble because they went to see whether
these things were true. And so Paul here is telling Timothy,
listen, if these guys just have no disregard for God's Word or
for God's grace, then these aren't the ones that you need to spend
your time teaching these things and entrusting these things to
them. There comes a time, brothers, and I've found this to be true
so often, that after a while, you just shake the dust off your
feet and you have to go on. There's also, according to Scripture,
a time where you don't cast your pearl before the swine. And that
isn't to say that to be hateful. I don't think we ever should
be hateful to anybody. You're just swine, I'm not casting my
pearl before it anymore. We're still to be loving and
merciful and forgiving and patient and things like that. But there
comes a time, and I can't tell you when it is, necessarily.
I'm more patient with some men than other men, I guess. But
there comes a time where you just say, you know, you don't
really seem like you're open to instruction, correction, or
even open to come let us reason together. So at that point, then
we have to just turn and walk away. And so Paul here says to
be strong in the grace that is in Christ and to confer this
or to teach this to others. Now, I pray that's what we do
here. I hope that that's been the case from the time that I've
been here, and however much longer the Lord gives me to preach and
to teach, as long as He has me doing so, I pray that we're strong
in the grace of Christ. I'm thankful again, I've mentioned
it a while ago, I'm thankful that he's gathered us a body
of people here that is strong on these things, that these things
are paramount, that the color of the carpet and the type of
music and the lights and cameras and You know,
fog and music and all that kind of stuff isn't the main issues,
that the main issues is what gospel is being preached, what
gospel is being conveyed and defended and held. Is that true even when someone
comes in that is a potential another person here? Are you
willing to be strong and bold in that even if it means losing
someone who might be here? I don't think we ought to be,
you know, mean to them or, you know, run them off. Sometimes
I may do things the wrong way and be too overbearing, but that's
a fault of mine. But we should be strong in the
grace of Christ. All right, let's take a break. And if you need to get something
to drink, we'll meet back here and look at a few more things.