you Upon my great and sovereign God,
I cast my soul and rest. My Father's hand controls the
world, and what He does is best. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. In raging storms and
fiery trials, He keeps me from all harms. He walks with me and
holds me in His everlasting arms. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. My God with skill infallible
and great designs of grace, with power and love that never fail,
shall order all my ways. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. My life's most minute
circumstance Is ordered by my God Who promised that in all
things He Will ever do me good So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. Thank you, Adam. If you were singing that, I was
thinking what the Lord said about the Father making Christ to be
our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption,
and that all the blessings of God are yea and amen in him.
And when the Lord is pleased to make himself known to us,
That's when we're blessed. That's when we're blessed. I heard that Haley Hanson might
be here this morning for her first time. Is that true? No,
she's not. Okay. All right. We're going to look at a verse
in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 this morning. 1 Corinthians chapter 4. By way
of introduction, I want to go back to where we've been in 1
Samuel and look at David and Saul one more time. God not only gives grace to the
humble, and not only does he resist the proud, but it is his
grace that humbles our pride. It is God's grace that causes
us to see and to believe that all that we have came from him. 1 Corinthians chapter four, and
these things brethren I have, verse six, I'm sorry, And these
things, brethren, Paul is identifying himself and saying, I have in
a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes.
Paul had just spoken of how he didn't judge himself, he waited,
you know, for God to bring judgment. That he might, that you might
learn in us not to think of men above that which is written,
that no one of you be puffed up one against another. We read
in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 that love is not puffed up. How puffed
up we can be. How self-righteous and proud
we can be. And that is our nature left to
ourselves. And if the Lord doesn't remind
us that it's he that made us to differ we will be proud, we
will be puffed up, we will be self-righteous. And so in verse seven, and here's
the title of this message, for who maketh thee to differ? And what hast thou that thou
didst not receive? What do you have that you didn't
get from God? You know, in that pause that
I just made, I suspect that most of us took a breath. You got
that from God. All that we have in this world
and in the world to come comes from him. And believers want
to be humble, but as soon as they try to act humble, That's
so fake, isn't it? That's so pious and it's just
another way of being self-righteous when we try to act humble. Where
does humility really come from? Well, where does being able to
love come from? Does it not come from being loved?
Where is being able to forgive come from? Is it not from being
forgiven? Where does true humility come
from? Knowing and believing that all
that I have is from God, everything. Well, that'll humble you. And
that's what Paul's saying. Who maketh thee to differ? What
do you have that you did not receive? Now, if you did receive
it, why dost thou glory as if thou has not received it? Augustine once said, if you ask
me what the essential thing is in the followers of Christ, I
shall say unto you, first, humility, second, humility, third, humility. If we ever come to an understanding
that all that we have, spiritually, physically, is a gift from God,
that's what grace is. Humility comes from grace. God
gives grace to the humble and he resists the proud, but it
is God's grace that humbles our pride. It is God's grace that
humbles our pride, believing that I have nothing that didn't
come from God. It is not him that willeth, nor
of him that runneth. It is of God that showeth mercy.
He's the potter, we're the clay. He's made from the same lump
of clay, some vessels of honor and some of dishonor, and he
gets all the glory. All that he did foreknow, foreknow. He loved them with an everlasting
love, that's what foreknow means. All that he did foreknow, he
did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son. And
all that he did predestinate, he called. So our election in
foreknowledge and predestination is all of God. What do we have
that we did not receive? Our calling. When the Spirit
of God calls us by his grace and enables us to come to faith
in Christ, what do we do about that? What do we have to do with
that? Our redemption, the work that the Lord Jesus accomplished
on Calvary's cross in putting away our sin, what do you have
that you did not receive? Oh, here's the message this morning,
brethren. I want to believe this for myself. You know, I was asking
the Lord last night, Lord, make this real to me. And Trish and
I went down to a place where we walk around a lake and there
was a man down there, a little bit older than me, on a cane,
passing out tracks. And we paused and talked to him
for just a moment to see if he was interested in listening to
anything. And he let me know that in the last little while,
he had knelt right there in that very spot and prayed with 40
individuals and got them to accept Jesus as their savior and save
them. Now that happened to me last
night. And this verse came to mind because had the Lord left
me to myself, that's what I was doing. That's what I was doing. And I'd still be doing it. And
I'd be just like that old man on a cane trying to get people
saved by getting them to pray a prayer. He gave me a track.
I read the track. Just pray this prayer. Say these words and make
a decision. Accept Jesus and he'll save you.
I'd be right there. There's no question in my mind
about it. Who maketh thee to differ? Why am I not doing that
anymore? What do I have that I've not
received? Oh, Lord, make me to differ. Don't leave me to myself. Make
a distinction between me and the Egyptians. All that he did foreknow, he
did predestinate, and all that he predestinated, he called,
and all that he called, he justified. He justified. He put them in Christ and made
them to be without sin, that's what it is, to be justified,
to stand in the presence of God sinless. What do you have that
you did not receive? Who may it be to differ? How
can I stand before God and be sinless unless he puts me in
Christ and does for me a work that I cannot do for myself?
and all that he justified, he glorified. And that's in the
past tense. Yes, we still have our glorification
to look forward to in our experience, but in the work of God, in what's
already been determined and purposed by God and accomplished in Christ,
we are right now in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus with all the
blessings of God right now. glorified, past tense, when the
Lord Jesus entered into glory. He said, I go and prepare a place
for you. The word of God did not return
void. He took with him the names of
those for whom he lived and died, and they are seated in him in
the heavenlies right now, glorified, glorified already. What do you
have that you've not received? Who make thee to differ? Why are you that way? What gives
you hope in Christ and your friends, your family members, and so many? The self-righteous religionists,
when they hear about God's sovereignty and salvation and God's electing
grace, they immediately respond by saying, that's not fair. Had
a brother write me just last night from up in Pennsylvania.
He said, I was talking to a coworker and he said, that's just not
fair. That doesn't sound right. That's not right. My God's not
like that. How do we respond? to God's electing
grace? How do we respond to the fact
that God in his sovereignty chose to make a difference in some
and not others? Lord, why me? Why me? Why would a holy God choose anyone?
And most particularly, why would you choose me? Why would you
put me under the sound of the gospel? Why would you open the
eyes of my understanding? Why would you give me faith in
Christ? Why would you shut me up to the
gospel? Why would you do that? Lord,
I don't see anything in myself that, I mean, a whole lot of
people that are better people than I am, They don't know Christ? Lord, why? How humbling is the distinguishing grace of
God? Show you another passage of scripture.
Turn with me to Exodus chapter 11. Exodus chapter 11. Nine of the ten plagues have
come. Pharaoh is unrepentant and the scripture tells us why.
The scripture says I raised him up that I might show my power
in him and that he might as a vessel fitted for destruction might
be an example to the vessels of grace That they would come
to see, had the Lord not had mercy upon them, they would be
left just like Pharaoh. Just like Pharaoh. And now the
death angel is coming. And they've taken the blood of
the lamb. By the revelation of God, they've taken the blood
of the lamb and they've put it on the door lentils and the lentil
and the door post of each house. What a picture of the cross,
the crucifixion of our Lord. And God said, when I see the
blood, I'll pass by you. And look here in Exodus chapter
11 and verse six, and there shall be
a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there's
none like it, nor shall there be like it anymore. It's a great
destruction. The firstborn in every household
that doesn't have the blood will die. Representing the cutting
off of the generation. It's not just an individual dying.
It's a picture of spiritual death. When the firstborn dies, the
name is put to death. Verse seven. But against any
of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue against
men or beast that you may know how that the Lord doth put a
difference between the Egyptians and Israel. The name Egypt. Translated means
the land of the crypts or the tombs. And to this very day,
to this very day, those massive pyramids in Egypt stand as a
testimony. They stand as a testimony to
the whole world and I hope to us of what men try to do in order
to achieve for themselves everlasting life. What did they put in those
tombs with the pharaohs? They put, they killed servants,
put servants in there. They put riches in there. They
put wives in there. They put wealth in there. They
put great riches in those pyramids. The land of the crypts, the land
of the tombs, Egypt. And just as God sent Moses to
Egypt to bring the children of Israel out, that's where you
and I lived. We come into this world as Egyptians,
believing that somehow we can store up things that are going
to secure for us eternal life. And the Lord has to make a distinction
between Israel and the Egyptians, lest we die in Egypt. Under the
harsh hand of the taskmasters, requiring us to achieve the law
in order for us to be saved, the Lord has to send a savior,
Moses. And the scripture says, I will
send one like unto him. And that's exactly what God did
when the Lord Jesus came into this world. He came into Egypt. And he made a distinction between
the Egyptians and Israel. And the Hebrew Romans chapter
10 said, and he saved all Israel. If you read on in this story
in Exodus, you find that the scripture says, not a hoof was
left behind. Every Israelite left with their
cattle, with their animals, with all their possessions and the
possessions of the Egyptians for that matter. And not a thing
was left behind. And so it is in the deliverance
that the Lord Jesus has brought when he makes a distinction between
the Egyptians and Israel. When he makes us to differ, he
doesn't leave anything behind. He secures everything for himself. Did those Egyptian, did those
Israelites have any hope of escaping Egypt apart from God coming and
bringing that death angel and bringing them out? Did they have
any hope? No. And neither do you and I. Who maketh thee to differ? What
do you have that you have not received? Now just to go back to 1 Samuel,
because the story of Samuel and Saul is what got me to thinking
about the difference that God made between these two men. We
saw that Saul had cast the soothsayers out of Israel and And now the Lord has forsaken
him. As a matter of fact, if you look
at chapter 28 at verse 16, when Samuel speaks to Saul, you remember
the witch of Endor brings Samuel up? from the grave, and now Samuel
is gonna speak to Saul. And in verse 16, then Samuel
said, wherefore dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is departed
from thee and is become thine enemy? I've had people say, well, was
Saul saved? I think that passage right there
sums up Saul's demise. God doesn't become the enemy
of his children. Oh no. No, he's a friend that
sticketh closer than a brother. Oh, he loves his people. Nothing can separate us from
the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Saul went back to the
very place that he knew was a false gospel. And Saul's life is now
going to come to an end. In the next couple of chapters,
Saul's going to go to battle against the Philistines, end
up falling on his own sword, which is another picture of Saul's
spiritual condition. We'll get to that when we come
to it. Saul's judgment in this passage,
we didn't read these verses last Sunday, look at verse 17. And
the Lord had done to him as he spake by me for the Lord hath
rent the kingdom out of thine hand and given it to thy neighbor
even unto David because thou obeyest not the voice of the
Lord nor executed his fierce wrath against Amalek. Therefore
hath the Lord done this thing unto thee this day moreover the
Lord will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the
Philistines And tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me. And the Lord also shall deliver
the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines. Then Saul
fell straightway all along on the earth and was sore afraid
because of the words of Samuel. And there was no strength in
him for he had eaten no bread all that day and all that night. No words of hope, repentance. Saul, if you'll do this, God
will have mercy. No, it's just judgment, that's all. Well, as we'll see, if you'll turn
with me back to chapter 27 in verse one, I want you to see how God made
a difference between David, a man after God's own heart, one of
God's elect, and Saul. Scriptures are clear, God rejected
Saul, left him to himself, he died a death of wrath and judgment,
and God became his enemy. David on the other hand, look
at verse one of chapter 27. And David said in his heart,
now this was after Saul had said, I'm not going to pursue you anymore. David didn't trust Saul. And
in David's lack of trust for Saul, neither did he trust God. Neither did he trust God. David
should have stayed in the wilderness with his men where he was. But David, like Saul, was looking
for protection. He was looking for a place of
safety. And rather than trusting God to keep him and to protect
him and to keep him safe, look what he does. And David said
in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul.
There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape
into the land of the Philistines and Saul shall despair of me
to seek me anymore in any coast of Israel. So shall I escape
out of his hand. And David arose and he And he
is passed over with the 600 men that were with him unto Achish,
the son of Maok, king of Gath." Now, do you remember the significance
of Gath? Goliath was from Gath. This uncircumcised
Philistine, the one that David slew years before, the enemies
of Israel. And Achish was the king of Gath.
And now David is going to take his men in order to find a place
of safety and he's going to flee to the city of Gath and put himself
under Achish, the king of Gath. Well, you read on this chapter,
you'll find out in the next that David became friends with Achish and
Achish trusted David and David goes to battle and brings
spoils back and gives them to Achish, the king of Gath, the
enemies of Israel. And Achish gives David the city
of Ziklag and they live right there in their own area. And Achish and David become best
friends. Well now, in chapter 29, the
other kings of the Philistines, and there were five of them all
together, So Achish is one of the five. The other kings of
the Philistines gather their army together and they come to
Achish and they say to Achish, we're going against Israel. We're
gonna destroy Israel. And Achish says to David, come
with us. David, you and your 600 men,
you're gonna join in with our army? and we're gonna go against
Israel and we're gonna defeat Israel. Now David's between a
rock and a hard place. David's, if I refuse to go, I
expose myself as a defender of Israel and the Philistines will
kill me. If I don't refuse to go, I'm
gonna find myself in a battle against my own people. David,
as a result of this decision that he made to go stay with
the Philistines and find his safety with the Philistines rather
than with God, has got himself into a place much like the place
I have found myself in and the place you have found yourself
in. When you make compromises and here you are stuck, what
do I do? Well, God made David to differ. God put it into the hearts of
the other four kings of the Philistines to not trust David and the other
four kings of the Philistines come to Achish and say to him,
David can't go with us. Nacchus goes to David and Nacchus
says, you know, I trust you, you're like a brother to me,
I love you, you know, but these other kings are against you and
you're not going to be able to go with us. And God in his providence
delivers David when he didn't deliver Saul. He made David to
differ. He made a provision for David
to not have to go to battle. Here's the message. When God
makes his elect to differ, he remaineth faithful even when
we're not. Why? Because he cannot deny himself. That's what the scripture says.
If we believe not, yet he remaineth faithful for he cannot deny himself. God had made covenant promises
to David and God for his namesake was going to be faithful to those
covenant promises. God has made covenant promises
to his son. the son of David, the Lord Jesus
Christ, and to his bride, and in all of their unfaithfulness,
and in all of their unbelief, he remaineth faithful, for he
cannot deny himself." What an encouragement. Brethren,
you didn't do anything to earn your salvation. and you can't
do anything to lose it. And the self-righteous legalist
will hear something like that and say, you can't tell folks
that. That'll lead them into a sin of licentious living. The only thing that restrains
my flesh in any way is God's grace. It is the fact that I
didn't do anything to earn it and I can't do anything to lose
it. You see, it is God's grace that
humbles us. It is God's grace that causes
us to believe that he made us to differ. And then all of my
unbelief and all of my unfaithfulness, he cannot deny himself. Turn
with me to 1 Samuel chapter 12, 1 Samuel chapter 12. Look with me at verse 22. This
is our hope. Grace doesn't lead to licentious
living. Grace leads us to Christ. It
always leads us back to Christ. Grace is what humbles. Grace
is what breaks the heart. Grace is what causes us to love
Him. The free grace of God, which says to us, Lord, you made me
to differ. and all that I have comes from
you. I didn't do anything to earn
it. I can't do anything to lose it. I'm completely dependent
upon you now as I ever was before. And brethren, you've had enough
experience with your own sin to know. You've got enough experience
to know that if God allowed you to remain in that sin, and didn't
bring you to repentance and didn't break your heart and cause you
to seek his grace and mercy, if he left you to yourself in
your sin, you'd be just like Saul. If he didn't make you to
differ, if he didn't make a distinction between you as an Israelite and
the Egyptians, is there any limit to what we
would do? Would we not go to the witch
of Endor? Would we not forsake God? Would we not die with God
as our enemy if God didn't make us to differ? 1 Samuel 12, verse 22, for the
Lord will not forsake his people for his great namesake, because
it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people. His name is written
on us. on his church. These are my,
this is my bride. These are my people. Jehovah said, can you, she shall
be called the Lord, our righteousness. And God has put his righteousness
on his bride and he's going to pursue her and persist with her
and keep her so that he is never at enmity with her. Why? Because he's made us to differ.
What do you have that you did not receive? What'd you do to
earn it? What'd you do to deserve it?
What'd you do to merit it? Nothing, Lord. Matter of fact,
every day I do enough to deny it. I do what David did. I run to the enemies of God,
I run to the Philistines, I run to those, to the law and to my
flesh and everywhere else to try to find safety and you won't
allow me to stay there and you keep bringing me back to Christ
and it's only in him that I can find true rest. Why'd you do
it? For my namesake. Let me show
you a passage in Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5. Some of you already know where
I'm going. This is the passage about the husband's duties and
the wife's duties and the Lord is using it as an analogy of
Christ and His Church. So the Conclusion of this passage,
the Lord said, I speak to you of a great mystery concerning
Christ and his church. So when we read these verses,
the husband is Christ and the bride is his church. Look what he says in verse 28. So ought men to love their wives
as their own bodies He that loveth his wife loveth himself, for
no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth it and cherish
it, even as the Lord the church. For we are members of his body
and of his flesh and of his bones, so that When we are unfaithful,
he remaineth faithful for he can not deny himself. Our union with the Lord Jesus
Christ is such that for Christ to deny us will be to deny himself. That's why he's faithful. He's
put us in a covenant bond with Christ. The two shall become
one flesh. Psalm 23 verse three, he leadeth
me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake. Isaiah chapter 48 verse 9, for
my namesake will I defer my anger and for my praise that I cut
you not off. God cuts all off. He left him
to himself. He died in judgment and wrath.
David, David did the same thing. In a lot of ways, David Let me
give you another example of two that actually did do exactly
the same thing, Judas and Peter. Judas sold the Lord for 30 pieces
of silver. Peter, with cursing three times,
denied even knowing the Lord. What made the difference? Peter? Before the night's over,
you're gonna deny me three times, but be of good cheer. Why? Because
I have prayed for you that your faith fail not. Your faith's
not gonna fail. Not gonna fail. If you've been given faith, you can't not believe. You just can't do it. You try
every day. But the Lord's prayed for you
that your faith fail not. Why? Because he made a distinction
between his people and the Egyptians. Who make it thee to differ? What
do you have that you have not received? When God makes his
elect to differ, he works all things together for good. for them that love him and those
that are called according to his purpose. Now, don't misunderstand
that. We're not just doing what the world
does and whistling through the graveyard and convincing ourselves,
you know, all is good, it's all good, something good is going
to come out of this. You know, there's a silver lining around
every gray cloud power of positive thinking, God said all things
work together for good for them that love him, those are the
called according to his purpose. Let me ask you this, a saint
of God is strapped to a pole and a fire is kindled under him
and he is being burned to death for Christ's sake. You think
he's going to be thinking, well, something good is going to come
out of this. Somehow my life's going to get better. It's going
to be a positive thing. When God said all things work
together for good, he's not talking about, you know, well, you're
going to see some positive result from this difficulty come about
in your life. No. You might, you might not. When the rich young ruler said,
good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life? What did
the Lord Jesus say to him? Why callest thou me good? For there is none good but God. When the Lord told Moses that
I'm gonna cause my goodness to pass before you, he was talking
about revealing the glory of Christ to him. When Paul said,
in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. When God says all things work
together for good, God works everything. Even that brother
who's dying a martyr's death strapped to a pole with a fire
under him. God's working everything together
to reveal Christ, the goodness of God. And if God does that, and he
will. David said, before I was afflicted,
I'd gone astray, but now I've kept thy word. Now, Lord, these
trials and tribulations have caused me to to come to Christ
and to love Christ and to depend upon Christ and see more of his
glory and more of his sufficiency so that your grace is now sufficient
for me and your strength is made perfect in my weakness and Christ
has been revealed. Can it get any gooder than that? Can it? You know, we're the only ones
that can say, with understanding and with truth, it is all good. It's all good. Because God in
this is going to reveal more of Christ to me. And Christ is
who I need, and Christ is my life, and he is my way, and he
is my salvation, and he is my all, and it don't get any gooder
than him. He's the best it gets. And I'm
going to believe that God's going to work all things together for
good. He's going to make a distinction. He's going to bring about my
salvation. Yes, that martyr can say, As
he looks up into heaven and draws his last breath, this is good. I'm going to meet my Lord. It's all good. Why? Who maketh thee to differ? What do you have that you've
not received? Is there anything more humbling and humble our pride and self-righteousness. I'll speak for myself. My pride
and self-righteousness is always in need of being humbled. This is the message that humbles
me and causes me to know all that I have in this life and
in the life to come. is a gift given to me by God's
grace. Our heavenly father, thank you. Thank you for your grace. Thank
you for thy dear son. Forgive us and keep us for Christ's
sake. Amen. Number nine, let's stand together,
number nine. Number nine from the Spiral hymnbook. "'Tis not that I did choose thee,
for Lord, that could not be. ? This heart would still refuse
thee ? ? Hast thou not chosen me ? ? Thou from the sin that
stained me ? ? Hast cleansed and set me free ? ? Of old thou
hast ordained me ? ? That I should live to thee ? ? Your love had
no beginning ? No cause in me was found ? That you should choose
to save me ? A sinner strongly bound ? But grace not earned
or sought for purpose for my soul. For me salvation brought,
for Christ paid the dreadful toll. T'was sovereign mercy called
me, And taught my opening mind. The world had else enthralled
me, To heavenly glories blind. My heart owes none before thee,
for thy rich grace I thirst. This knowing, if I loved thee,
thou must have loved me first.