All right, let's open our Bibles
now to Genesis chapter 18. Genesis chapter 18, this is the
passage that the Apostle Paul was referring to in Galatians
chapter three. Genesis 18, we'll begin our reading
in verse 16. And the men rose up from thence
and looked towards Sodom, and Abraham went with them to bring
them on the way. And the Lord said, Shall I hide
from Abraham that thing which I do? Seeing that Abraham shall
surely become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of
the earth shall be blessed in him. For I know him that he will
command his children and his household after him. And they
should keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment that
the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he has spoken of him.
We'll end our reading there. Let's bow before our Lord in
prayer. Our Father, we bow before your
mighty throne of grace this evening, thankful that we don't have to
come before a bar of your justice, a throne of justice, trying to
plead our works. But oh, how thankful we are that
we can come before a throne of grace, pleading the merit and
the blood and the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father,
how we thank you for your mercy and grace that is so unimaginable,
it's so great, it's so unimaginable to the human mind, that you would
choose to save sinful men and women such as we are by putting
us in your son, by giving your son the punishment that we deserve,
and giving us the righteousness that he earned as a man under
the law. Father, how we thank you. And
Father, as we bow before you, we beg of you this evening that
you'd give us a spirit of worship that you'd give us a time of
true worship. As you've enabled us to gather
together out of this dry and barren and dark world, Father,
we pray that you give us a refreshing from your word. That you enable
us to see the Lord Jesus Christ by faith and to worship him. That we might lift up and magnify
his name. Father, that we might truly worship
from the heart, not just go through the motions of religion with
the flesh, but Father, that you might enable us to worship from
the heart. And Father, we dare not forget
to pray for those who are in times of difficult, difficult
trials, those who are, they're in such deep waters. Father,
we pray you'd be with them. We pray for your hand of comfort.
Pray for your hand of healing and mercy and deliverance. Father,
we're thankful to know that these things have not come by accident,
but they're so grievous to us. And we pray that you'd comfort
our hearts and that you, if you could be pleased to deliver that
you do so quickly. All these things we ask in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ is for his sake and his glory,
we pray. Amen. I've titled the message this
evening, the children of Abraham. I took my title from verse 19
when the Lord says, for I know that he'll command his children
and his household after him. Now the Lord is not talking about
the kind of parent that Abraham will beat his natural children
here at all. Now that's not to say that the kind of parents
we are is unimportant. It's very important to our children
that we be good parents to them. If we don't teach our children
the difference between right and wrong, who's going to teach
them? If we don't do those things with our children and discipline
them, Solomon tells us we must be bad parents because we hate
them. If you don't discipline your children, you hate them.
It's very important that by our word we teach our children the
gospel, that we talk to them about it at home by our deed. It's very important that we teach
our children by our example. What a life of faith looks like,
what it looks like when somebody believes on God and trusts God.
That's very important, but that's not what the Lord's talking about
here. The Lord here is talking about the spiritual children
of Abraham. All the children of Abraham are
the children of God. So every believer is a child
of Abraham. Let me re-read to you a portion
of what we read to open the service, Galatians 3 verse 6. Even as
Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.
Know ye therefore, that they which are of faith, the same
are the children of Abraham. Those who God has given faith
in Christ to, those are the people who are the children of Abraham,
not his natural children, his spiritual children. And children
are like their fathers. Every child of Abraham, is like
our father Abraham in this way. It's faith. We all have the same
God-given faith in Christ. Every child of God is saved the
same way our father Abraham was saved. It's by faith. It's not by works, but by faith. So tonight I want us to look
at a few characteristics of the children of Abraham. And my prayer
is this. that when we see these characteristics
of the children of Abraham, we're going to say, that's how God
saved me so that we can leave here knowing I'm a child of Abraham. So first thing, the children
of Abraham, they're all saved by grace. The same way Abraham
was saved by grace. Verse 19, the Lord says, for
I know him. I know him. Now the reason that
God knew Abraham, he's not just talking about, I know his name.
God knows everybody's name. God knows who everybody is. God
knew Abraham in a special way. The way, the reason that God
knew Abraham is God put Abraham in Christ before the world ever
was. Now that's not true of everybody.
God knows everybody's name, but God doesn't know everybody like
he's talking about Abraham here. Remember at the judgment when
the Lord separated the sheep on his right hand, the goats
on his left. He told those self-righteous, those goats who were on his left,
Depart from me, I never knew you. He knew their names. He knew their works, their works
of self-righteous. He knew those things, but he
never knew them in grace. He never knew them in love. He
never knew them in redemptive power. But God knew Abraham because
God saved Abraham by grace. Not because Abraham deserved
it, by his grace. Every believer who's a child
of Abraham will say the very same thing. God saved me by His
grace. I didn't deserve it. I didn't
earn it by my works. God saved me by His grace. God didn't save me because I'm
good. God saved me because He's good by His grace. And He knows
me. Now you stop and think about
that for a minute. How amazing is it that the Almighty God would
know us? I mean, what are we in the scheme
of things? I mean, we're just such specks of dust in God's
creation, and He would bother to take notice of us? To know
us, to know us in saving grace, to know us in electing love.
It just is astounding to me. And what a blessing that is,
because if God knows us, we'll never be alone. If God knows
us, His eyes never off of us. We may not be able to see Him,
but He sees us because He knows us. If God knows us, we can never
be condemned because the Lord saves everybody He knows in His
love and in His grace. So we know this has to be talking
about the spiritual children of Abraham, not the physical
children. Ishmael. Ishmael was the first
natural child of Abraham. but the Lord's not talking about
Ishmael here. Ishmael was a product of the power of the flesh and
the works of the flesh. It was no mystery that Hagar
young and in the prime of life could get pregnant and have a
child. No mystery that whatsoever. That's the works of the flesh,
the power of the flesh. And there's no salvation. The
only thing that you can find in the works of the flesh and
the power of the flesh is condemnation. See, salvation is a supernatural
work of God. Salvation is not mere knowledge.
Now, I hope we know right doctrine. I hope we know true doctrine.
But salvation is not just knowledge. Abraham taught Ishmael the law. He taught Ishmael what God said,
same way he did Isaac. But Ishmael wasn't saved. Salvation
is not going through the ceremonies of religion. I mean, I hope we're
very serious about the worship service. I hope we're very faithful
to those things, but now salvation is not in the ceremonies of religion.
Ishmael was circumcised the same day Abraham was. Ishmael wasn't
saved. Salvation can only be by God's
distinguishing electing grace, where he chooses a people and
he says, I know thee. And if you're a child of Abraham,
this is your confession. God saved me by his grace. I
did everything I could not do and God saved me by his grace
anyway. All right, here's the second
thing. The Lord teaches all the children
of Abraham his way. He teaches them verse 16 and
the man rose up from fence and looked towards Sodom and Abraham
went with them to bring them on the way. And the Lord said,
shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do? Now, y'all
know what is getting ready to happen here. The Lord's getting
ready to go to Sodom in judgment, and he's going to destroy that
place. But he says here, I'm not going to hide from Abraham
that thing which I do. He's not going to hide this from
Abraham. He hid it from everybody else except for Lot down there,
didn't he? He hid it from everybody else,
but he's not going to hide it from Abraham, and you know why? Because
Abraham's his friend. God knows Abraham and Abraham
is his friend. The master doesn't tell his servants
what he's doing, but he tells his friends. And Abraham is the
friend of God. And God's telling that you're
going to tell Abraham what he's getting ready to do. Lord willing,
we'll look at that next week. But you know, God does the same
thing for all the children of Abraham. Now, obviously the Lord
does not tell us everything he's getting ready to do. You know,
he, and he certainly doesn't tell us his purpose in everything
that he does, but God doesn't hide his purpose. God does not
hide his purpose of redemption from his people. He teaches them. He teaches all of his children
that salvation is in the Lord Jesus Christ. The father teaches
all of his children that salvation is accomplished by the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the father teaches all of
his children. Salvation is by grace, through faith. And he doesn't hide that from
his children. He teaches it to them. So it's so obvious to them,
they can't not see it. He gives them a heart to believe
it. It's so precious to them, they can't not believe it. To much of the world, how sin
can be put away that's hidden from them. But it's not to you. You think of that. God taught
you how sin is put away in the blood of His Son. How did God
tell you that? Not audibly. By His Word. By preaching. And you heard the
preacher, and then one day God spoke, and it went into your
heart and you believed it. God taught you that. You know,
Job asked the age-old question, how shall a man be just with
God? How's that possible? How can
a sinner ever be righteous? Well, that answer is not hid
from you who believe. God's not hidden that from you.
God's taught you Christ is our righteousness. Righteousness
is in Christ. It's received by faith in Christ.
Now, do you know those things? Do you believe those things?
And does that thrill your heart? Well, you're a child of Abraham.
The father taught you that. And I know he's always taught
all of his people that. Bob called me a young man earlier
tonight. I'm glad somebody still calls
me a young man, but the older I get, Bob, the more I tend to
think this is the worst time in the history of the world.
This is so awful. I've been practicing to be a
grouchy old man a long time. But there are many ways this
is the absolute best time in history to live. We shouldn't
get so down in the mouth that we forget that from time to time.
The prophets longed to look into these things that we're talking
about tonight. Now they saw them by faith, didn't they? We know
they saw Christ by faith, but they were a long way off. And
they didn't see him near as clearly as they wanted to. Abraham saw
Christ's day. Isn't that what our Savior said?
Abraham saw my day and was glad. And he saw, by faith he saw Christ. But Eric, he didn't see it nearly
as clearly as we do. Oh, I'd a whole lot rather live
now. This is after the finished work
of Christ. And it's so clear and plain and
obvious to us. God's not hidden his purpose
of redemption from you. He's told you all about it. All about his purpose of redemption.
Isn't that wonderful? It's so wonderful. And I know
we see more clearly than Abraham did, but we still see through
a glass darkly, don't we? You can understand how those
prophets, they long to see those things more clearly. So do we.
I mean, we see them more clearly than they did, but we still,
we're not going to be satisfied till we see Christ face to face,
are we? Till then, we're just going to see these things in
shadow. And I know we don't know everything, that there is to
know about God. We don't know everything that
God's doing, His purpose in doing these things. But the Lord has
not hidden from His people how He saves sinners. He hasn't hidden
the Savior from His people. He teaches them. He teaches us
that salvation is by His grace, undeserved on our part, and He
gives it to us freely because He's gracious through faith in
Christ, by believing Christ. and not having any of our works
be added to it. Now, if you know that and you
believe it, be thankful, because God taught you that. Your mama
and daddy can't teach you that, your pastor can't teach you that,
your Sunday school teacher can't teach you that. And we'll say
those things, but only God can teach you. If you rest in Christ
that way, the Father's taught you that, because we couldn't
know in any other way. And I'm right happy with that,
aren't you? I'm happy. to rest in that, and to depend
on Him to teach His people, to depend on Him to make the message
effectual. Right before I got up to preach
last night, one of the ladies sang, It's Well with My Soul.
And Brother Rex Bartley, normally when he introduces the speaker,
he says, come up here and brag on the Savior. Is that what he
does to you? Come up here and brag on the Savior? Last night he said,
come up here and tell us why it's well with our souls. And you know, I could do that.
By God's grace, I know why I said, well, first of all, I'm happy,
happy to rest in Christ that way. All right, here's the third
thing. All the children of Abraham are
blessed, blessed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 18, God says,
seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation
and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. Now
they're not gonna be blessed in Abraham, but all the people
of the whole earth have been blessed by the Savior that came
through Abraham's loins. In Isaac shall thy seed be called.
He's in the line of the Savior. Now the Lord Jesus Christ is
the God man. He is truly God. And the Savior
has to be. He's truly God, so he has the
power to save. He's truly God, so he has the
right to forgive sin. There are sins against God, so
only God can forgive it. He's God who has the right to
forgive sin. He's truly God, so he's holy. He's righteous. He has a righteousness
to give his people. And he's truly God who has the
authority to forgive sin, because his precious blood is able to
pay the sin debt. So he's God. At the same time,
he's God, he's also truly man. He's a man so he can be the representative
of sinful men and women like us. He's truly a man so he can
be the sacrifice for sinful men. God can't die for me, God can't
die for you, but a man can. So God's son became a man so
he could die in the place of his people. The Lord Jesus Christ
is both God and man at the same time so that he can make his
people the righteousness of God in him. And this righteousness
is not a pretend thing. It's not a thing you'll experience
someday. It's not pasted on like brother
Scott Richardson says, not pasted on over top of our filth and
our sin is still there. It's hidden by this pasted on
righteousness. We're made the righteousness
of God in Christ. We're given a righteous nature
that has never sinned and can never sin. It will never sin. It's a perfect righteousness.
And we have that righteousness by union with Christ. The believers
union with Christ is so real that verse 19 says that the children
of Abraham shall do justice in judgment. They'll do these things.
The word justice there means righteousness. The children of
Abraham do righteousness. Every believer does righteousness. I don't see how that's possible.
Everything I do is mixed with sin. How can it be that a believer
does righteousness in Christ? See, the believer's union with
Christ is so real that when the Lord Jesus Christ did righteousness
as a man under the law, so did his people. We actually did righteousness
in Christ our representative in the very same way we sinned
in our father Adam. We did righteousness in Christ
our representative. And God says, you who believe,
you are in Christ, you do righteousness. Well, I don't understand that.
I don't see it in myself, but the way God says it, that's what's
true. If you believe Christ, you're in Christ, you do righteousness. You have a righteous nature.
And he says they do judgment. Now this is, the word judgment
there means decide the case right. It's a correct, true verdict.
What he's talking about there is being truly made the righteousness
of God in Christ. Christ, by his sacrifice, he
made it right for God's elect to be called righteous. He made
it right for God to say they're right because they are. That's
what he made them by his sacrifice. Christ, the savior took the sin
of his people away from them and he made them what they're
not. He made them righteous. The righteousness of God in Him
because His sacrifice put away their sin. So the Father can't
call them anything but righteous. Because that's what Christ made
them. Now for a sinner to be made righteous, that's blessed. I know the whole world, when
you talk about being blessed, they immediately Think of health
and wealth and happiness and your children all do well. And
truth be told, that's in our minds too, isn't it? But I'll
tell you what the blessing is. For a sinner to be made as righteous
as the Son of God. Oh my, that's blessed. In this salvation that's accomplished
by Christ our Savior, is no small thing. He did this for sinners
from all over the world, in every generation, in every time, in
every nation. The Lord Jesus Christ is such
a powerful, all-sufficient Savior. He didn't just come save a few
Jews. The love of Christ for sinners is so great. He didn't
come to just save one of the smallest nations on earth, Israel,
over the middle of the Middle East. He came to save sinners
from every kindred and tongue and people and nation under heaven. And he got the job done. He saved
them. Now, what a Savior. We have to
believe Him and trust Him. That encourages me, and I hope
it encourages you. I hope it would encourage everybody
that ever hears this message or everybody ever hears of our
Savior to come to Him. and beg him, Lord have mercy
on me. Lord, save me. He saved a people
from every kindred, and every tongue, and every people, and
every nation. I fall in that category. Maybe he'd be merciful
to me. Maybe he would. It'd be just
like him to do it, wouldn't it? All right, here's the fourth
thing. All the children of Abraham are
taught. It's a parent's responsibility
to teach our children, not just keep them alive till they're
18, but actually teach them something. Well, all the children of Abraham
are taught something. They're taught the same thing.
They're taught to believe on Christ. Verse 19, the Lord says,
for I know him, that he will command his children and his
household after him. And they shall keep the way of
the Lord to do justice in judgment. Now Abraham, the Lord says he
was going to command his children. Abraham's children are going
to be taught the commandment, the commandment of God. And I
tell you this so often, the commandment, the commandment of God, the commandment
of the gospel is to believe. It's to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. God's commandment is not obey
the law and start doing better. Matter of fact, God's commandment
is the exact opposite of that. Quit trying to keep Quit trying
to make God happy with you by trusting by what you do in the
law and trust Christ. Trust Him. Trust Him who's already
obeyed to be your Savior. Trust Him. And by using the gospel
in picture, that's how Abraham's going to command all of his children.
Abraham believed God. It was counted to him for righteousness.
And so in that way, by his example, that's how he commands all of
his children Now you trust Christ. Quit your works and trust Christ. And I tell you what, they all
will. They all will. They're all going to obey that
commandment. They're going to quit trusting their works and they're
going to trust Christ. Look at John chapter eight. Now
the children of Abraham, they obey this commandment. They trust
Christ. They don't trust their works.
They don't trust their heritage. They trust Christ. and anyone
trusting in anything else, anyone trusting in anything other than
Christ alone is not a believer. I don't care how nice they are,
I don't care how religious they are, I don't care how well they
talk, if they're trusting in something other than Christ alone,
they're not a child of Abraham. And that's what our Lord says
here, John 8 verse 37. I know that you're Abraham's
seed, but you seek to kill me because my word hath no place
in you. I speak that which I've seen
with my father, and you do that which you've seen with your father.
Now here the Lord's telling him, I know you're the physical seed
of Abraham, but Abraham's not your spiritual father. Verse
39, they answered and said unto him, Abraham's our father. Jesus
saith unto them, if you were Abraham's children, you'd do
the works of Abraham. If you were Abraham's children,
you'd believe on me. You'd quit your works and you'd
believe on me the same way Abraham did. Verse 40. But now, you don't
trust in me, you seek to kill me. A man that hath told you
the truth, which I have heard of God. This did not Abraham. You do the deeds of your father. Then said they unto him, we be
not born of fornication. We have one father, even God.
Jesus said unto them, if God were your father, you'd love
me. For I proceeded forth and came from God. Neither came I
of myself, but he sent me. Why do you not understand my
speech? Why don't you believe me? Even
because you cannot hear my word. You're of your father, the devil,
and the lust of your father you will do. He was a murderer from
the beginning and a boat not in the truth because there's
no truth in it. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh
of his own, for he's a liar and the father of it. And because
I tell you the truth, you believe me not. Now that's a very, very
sobering statement. Either Abraham is our father
and we believe on Christ like Abraham did, or the devil's our
father. And we hate Christ like the devil
does. That's the two choices. That's the only two camps that
there are. And all Abraham's children have the same faith
in Christ because the Father gives it to them. He gives them
the same faith in Christ and he teaches all of his children
to trust Christ. All right, now here's the last
thing. All the children of Abraham, if you find those first four
things, that's how God saved me. Then this fifth thing is
gonna make you go home on a cloud of air. All the children of Abraham
are gonna receive everything God promised them. Look back
at our text, Genesis 18, at the end of verse 19. That the Lord may bring upon
Abraham that which he has spoken of him. Now, the Lord is gonna
give Abraham, we know this from history, he gave Abraham everything
he promised him. Well, the Lord's gonna do the
same thing for all of his children. He's going to give them everything
that he promised them. Now, how do you know that's true?
God's going to give his children everything he promised. Well,
there's two reasons right off the bat. I thought of the first
one is this. God always keeps his promise. God said he's going
to do something. He's going to do it. That's true,
isn't it? God always keeps his promise. But here's the second
thing. The Lord's going to give all
of his children everything he promised to give because the
Lord Jesus Christ came into flesh and He fulfilled, He ratified
God's covenant of grace with His own blood. That covenant
between the Father and the Son was a promise between the Father
and the Son. The Father promised, I've chosen
these people. If you suffer and die for them,
you obey the law for them, you suffer and die as their sacrifice,
they'll be saved and I'll accept them. Well, Christ came and He
ratified the covenant. He bought with his own blood. He bought all of those blessings
that the father promised for his people. Christ bought them
with his blood. He did everything he promised his father that he
would do. And in return, the father's going
to give his people everything that he promised to give them
by his grace. Everything. All right. That sounds pretty
good, doesn't it? Well, what blessings has God
given his people? Well, there are too many to list.
David said, if I try to number them, there are more than the
hairs of my head. Now, I've just always assumed David had a full
head of hair, probably kind of long hair. You know, there are
more than the hairs of my head. So we can't name them all, but
let's turn to two scriptures. I'll just give you a few. Ephesians
chapter one. Beginning in verse three. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. The Father has blessed
his people with all spiritual blessings. Not ones left out. Everything, everything, that
God has for a sinner, everything he's given to. Nothing's left
out. Nothing that is required to make
us perfect. Nothing that is required for
us to be in God's presence eternally, he's given them all freely. Verse four, according as he has
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love. The father, elected
a people in grace, and he chose those people unto salvation to
make them holy and without blame. You think what it means to stand
before God almighty without blame, to be holy. You accept it. You accept it. Verse five, having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children, by Jesus Christ
Himself according to the good pleasure of His will. Now the
Father elected a people and He could have chose anybody from
Adam's fallen race. Anybody. And He chose the likes
of me and you to make them His children. You think what it means
to be a child of God? I can tell you what it means
to be one of my four children. They got everything I have. I
mean, there's nothing of mine they can't have. The father has made us his children. There's nothing he has you can't
have. Oh my. Verse six, to the praise
of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the
beloved, in whom we have redemption. Not we will have, we have redemption. Through His blood, the forgiveness
of sin, according to the riches of His grace. The Father has
made us accepted. Not acceptable, where you gotta,
you know, kinda keep it. He's made us accepted in Christ. He's forgiven our sin, He's washed
our sin away in the blood of Christ, so we have no sin. Now I challenge you, name something
better than that. Can't be done. wherein he hath abounded toward
us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the
mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he
hath purposed in himself. Now how God saves sinners, how
it is that a sinner can be made righteous and accepted by the
Father, that's a mystery to the natural man. And the proof of
it is all the many different denominations and different styles
of false religion that are out there. Everybody's groping around
in the dark, trying to figure out an answer to the mystery,
and they all got it wrong. Why do you got it right? Why
do you, why is it, it's not a mystery to you, how God saves sinners.
It's all by the doing and dying of Christ. It's so simple to
you. It's so obvious to you. Why? The Father made it known
to you. Of all people on earth, He made
it known to us. I'm doing, oh what a, what a,
Blessing how blessed it we are to be the children of Abraham
All right one more scripture look back at Romans chapter 8 These are the blessings that
God gives all the children of Abraham Verse 28 Romans 8 And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God and to them who are
the called according to His purpose. Now, if you trust in Christ,
you trust Him because God called you to Him. He called you to
Christ. He chose you in Christ. He sent His Son to redeem you,
and He called you to Christ. Gave you faith in Christ. Taught
you, because that's the way He teaches all the children of Abraham,
isn't it? Teaches them to trust Christ. Well, if you've trusted
Christ, our Father has made it so that every event of providence
works together for our eternal good. That's all things. All things. Things that we call bad. Things that are painful to us.
Things that we don't like and things that we call good. Things
that we do like. All things. Our father works
them together for the eternal good of his people. All things. Now, I'm not saying there won't
be things that are painful to us, but we need fear nothing.
We need fear nothing if we're a child of Abraham. Isn't that
a blessing? People in this world are scared
to death of everything. You don't have to be scared of
one. Now, I'm not saying it won't be painful. I'm saying you don't
have to be scared of it. Because God works all things together
for good to those people. Those are his people that he's
called. In verse 29, for whom he did foreknow. Now remember,
we started out, God said, I know Abraham. This is what God's done
for those people that he knows. For whom he did foreknow, he
did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Now the father
predestined, he predetermined to make a people, his children.
He's gonna make every last one of them just like his son. Now we have some idea that's
a blessing, don't we? We got no idea. We got no idea. Oh, what a blessing that's gonna
be. Spiritually now, you who believe, you're just like Christ.
One day we're gonna be just like Him, body and soul. And notice
the rest of these things are all past tense. Verse 30, moreover
whom He did predestinate, He predetermined to make them just
like Christ, So he called them. He called them to Christ. And
you know what? The father's still doing that.
The earth's still spinning. Christ hadn't come back yet.
The gospel is still going forth. So he's still calling out his
people. He's still calling his people to come to Christ by the
preaching of the gospel. I'm telling you, it's just, it's
amazing. We just, I hope we never get
over this. God called sinners like us to his son. We ought not have in our mind
to feel like there's no hope for anybody. It ought to encourage
us to continue preaching the gospel to our generation. God's
still calling out his people. Doing it by the preaching of
the gospel. Read on, verse 30. Then whom he did predestinate,
then he called. And whom he called, he justified. Now the father has justified
all of his children. He didn't make it just as if
they'd never sinned. He gave them a nature that has
never sinned. He's made them without sin. So they're accepted by the Father.
Whom He justified, then He also glorified. Now there's one that's
past tense. He has glorified. And you think,
I'm not glorified. I'm still sitting here in the
body of this flesh. I'm sitting here right in these green chairs.
I'm not glorified. Well, that's true. That's true.
But if you're in Christ, you're already glorified. Ephesians
chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. We read these verses earlier,
verse 4. according as he had chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy, without blame before
him in love, having predestinated us to the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his grace,
to the praise of the glory of his grace, when he had made us
accepted into beloved, in whom we have redemption through his
blood, the forgiveness of sins. Well, that's not the verse I
wanted to read. The verse I wanted to read is
about Christ being seated in glory. Now, all of God's children
are in Christ. That's how we started the message.
They're in Christ. Well, if you're in Christ, where is He now? He's
seated in glory. He's seated in glory because
the work is finished. He's seated in heaven waiting
till His enemies be made His footstool. Then so are we who
believe. We're seated in heaven in Christ. I'll tell you what that means.
It's all over but shouting. It's all over. You know what
we're doing right now? We're just waiting for the day
when the Lord will physically bring us to be with Him and be
joined to our head and we'll be with Him forever. Now that's
the blessing every child of Abraham has to look forward to. I like that, don't you? I like
that. That'll comfort my heart and
let me sleep well tonight. Hope will you too. Let's bow
together. Our Father, oh how we thank you
for your mercy and your grace that would take sinful men and
women like we are and make us your children. Thankful for the
blessings that you promised us in Christ Jesus. Thankful for
everything that you have done for us, and that you are doing
for us, and thankful for where you're bringing us. Father, we
pray that you give us the grace to remain faithful, looking to
and trusting in Christ and Christ alone. It's for his name and
his sake we pray, amen. All right, Sean.