Good evening. That's a nice song. Joy. What's it called? I'll look at that. Let's open
this evening service with him. Number 42, number 42 in your
spiral handbook. Let us praise the name of Jesus. Let us praise the name of Jesus,
prophet, priest, and sovereign King. To him render adoration,
Lord, and homage to him bring. Let us praise the name of Jesus,
God incarnate from above. Came to save his chosen people,
sent by God in covenant love. ? Let us praise the name of Jesus
? ? Who upon Mount Calvary ? ? Shed his blood and sealed our pardon
? ? Died for sin to set us free ? ? Let us praise the name of
Jesus ? Prison conquering, gracious friend, advocate and mediator,
all our hopes on him depend. ? Let us praise the name of Jesus
? ? For he brought us to his fold ? ? Come exalt his name
and worship ? ? May the Savior be extolled ? ? Let us praise
the name of Jesus ? till we see him face to face. Then throughout the endless ages,
praise him for his love and grace. Please be seated. Good evening. Let's open our
Bibles to Psalm 32, Psalm 32 for our scripture reading tonight. How we hope the Lord will enable
us tonight to worship him and praise him as we as we just sang,
as we saw Sunday would just be returning back to him a portion
of what he gives to us. This will be a reason to praise
him. Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. It's what the blood of Christ
does. It covers our sin completely. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not, or charge him not with his iniquity, and
in whose spirit there is no guile. Isaiah put it like this, he said,
my children will not lie. In another place the scripture
said all men are liars, no man out alone tells the truth, and
yet when it comes to who we are, We don't lie to God about that.
When it comes to who God is, we don't lie about that or how
it is that God is pleased to put away our sin and cover our
iniquity. We are of the truth and no lies
of the truth. So to have your mouth without
guile is to have the truth in your heart. And that's a work
of grace. Verse three, when I kept silent,
my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For
day and night, thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned
into the drought of summer. I acknowledge my sin unto thee,
and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said I will confess my
transgressions unto the Lord. Thou forgave us the iniquity
of my sin. As always, we see these words
as they relate prophetically to the Lord confessing the sins
of his people and owning them as his own and being forgiven. For this shall everyone that
is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found. Surely
in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto
him Thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble.
Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah. I will instruct thee and teach
thee in the way in which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with
mine eye. Be ye not as the horse or as
the mule which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with
bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee. Many sorrows
shall be to the wicked, but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy
shall come past him about. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice,
ye righteous, and shout with joy, all ye that are upright
in heart. Deanna called this afternoon,
said Robert's in a lot of pain with his arthritis and not able
to get out. So I want us to pray for them
tonight. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly
Father, by your mercy and in your good
providence, you've been pleased to bring us here again tonight
put into our hearts a desire to know you and to worship you.
And Lord, we know that the desire that you put in our hearts is
there that you might feel it. And so Lord, we come with great
hope and anticipation of you meeting with us and speaking
to us and revealing yourself to us. assuring us once again
of the accomplished work of thy dear son and the putting away
of our sin and the certainty of our salvation. Lord, we pray
for Robert. We ask for your hand of strength
and healing to be upon him. Pray the same for Jennifer as
she struggles at home tonight. Lord, we pray that you would
give to them a special measure of your grace, of your hope and
peace in Christ as they wait on thee. We ask it in Christ's
name, amen. Number 125 in the hardback teminal,
125. Let's stand together. I hear the Savior say, thy strength
indeed is small. Child of weakness, watch and
pray. Find in me thine all in all. Jesus paid it all, all to Him
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow. Lord, now indeed I find Thy power
and Thine alone Can change the leper's spots And melt the heart
of stone Jesus paid it all All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. For nothing good have I ? Where
by thy grace to claim ? I'll wash my garments white ? In the
blood of Calvary's lamb ? Jesus paid it all ? All to him I owe
? Sin had left a crimson stain He washed it white as snow. And when before the throne I
stand in Him complete, Jesus died my soul to save, my lips
shall still repeat. Jesus paid it all, all to him
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
he washed it white as snow. Please be seated. Let's turn in our Bibles together
to the book of 1 Peter 1, 1 Peter 1. And we're going to try to
give our attention to just verse 17. 1 Peter 1, verse 17. I've titled this message, No
Respecter of Persons. How oftentimes we read that about
God. He is not a respecter of persons
in regard to his judgments and his righteousness. All men, all men, regardless
of their place in society, regardless of their experience, regardless
of their lives, all men are judged by God. without respect to their
person. We don't know a whole lot about
what it means to not be a respecter of persons in our own experience,
but I suppose that just once again shows us that God is holy. He's holy and by holy we mean
that he's completely other than we are. We are respecters of persons,
aren't we? We regard one person more than
another. We may be lenient with one individual
for something and be judgmental towards someone else over the
same thing. Much of our sinful prejudice
are found in the fact that we are respecters of persons we
don't want to be. The Lord rebukes us for that
in James chapter 2 when he speaks of treating one man better than
another for your own selfish gain. And he exposes that as being
nothing but pure sin. And so we hope the Lord would
give us the grace to be more like him than we are. But in regards to being a respecter
of persons, he respects no man over the other. All men before God are held to
the exact same standard. Now this is a great truth for
the believer. This is the simplicity of the
gospel. Aren't you glad, child of God,
that there are different standards? Aren't you glad that the Lord
doesn't change his requirements for being accepted in his presence? There is one standard for all
men, and it doesn't change. is glorious. Our God said, I
am the Lord and I change not and that's the reason why you
sons of Jacob are not consumed. The fact that our God is immutably
holy and that he has an immutable standard of righteousness and
judgment by where he judges all men on the same scale is of great
hope for us. It simplifies the gospel. There's
nothing complicated about this. There's one rule, one law. When God gave the children of
Israel the law in Leviticus chapter 19, he made it clear that all
men had to answer to that law the same way. All men were equal
under the law we hear a lot about that these days, don't we? And
we know that it doesn't always work out that way in our legal
system there are there are loopholes and there are There are appeals
and there are precedences set and things change but not with
God Not with God There's one law. There's one standard and
And that standard is absolute perfection. It doesn't change. It's not complicated. If God lowered his standard by
one little bit, we would be tempted to think that perhaps we might
be able to measure up to it. Wouldn't we? If the Lord compromised
his standard of judgment just one little bit, we would think,
oh, maybe I can measure up to that. But the fact that he has
it where he has it makes it absolutely impossible for us to find our
acceptance before God by our own righteousness. Look at our
verse, I'm sorry, we haven't read the verse yet. Verse 17,
and if you call on the Father, who without respect of persons
judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning
here in fear. We know that if we are to call
upon God, we must we must approach the throne of grace in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The hope that we have is that
in Christ, we are holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in God's sight. And outside of Christ, we are
under the wrath and judgment of his righteousness and his
justice. We can come boldly before the
throne of grace. God says that we are without
blame, without blame before him in love. So coming into the presence
of a holy God, Knowing that there is a standard of righteousness
that God required, that there's no way that we can measure to,
but that we have a substitute. We have an advocate with the
father. We have a righteousness outside of ourselves that God
is pleased with. That's the gospel. He is no respecter
of persons. He doesn't give one person a
pass and hold another person to a higher standard. He holds
every single individual to the same standard, perfect righteousness. 2 Chronicles 19, verse 7 says,
There is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of
persons, nor does he take a gift. You can't bribe God. We come
to Him without money and without price, Isaiah chapter 50. And
that word price means to barter. There's no bartering with God.
We come before God on His standard, on His terms, or we don't come. And He judges all men on that
same standard. No exceptions, no exemptions,
no appeals. All men are held to the same
standard. As I said, our laws change, don't
they? They change in time. Things that
are legal today, perhaps were illegal in previous generations,
they change in culture. One thing may be legal in one
part of the world and it's not legal in another part of the
world. And that's the way man's laws works. God has the same
standard. He is no respecter of persons
in every generation, of every age, in every country, in every
time, and in every culture. His standard is exactly the same. Isn't that hopeful? He doesn't
change. And he judges not based just
on outward actions. Man looks at the outward appearance,
God looks at the heart. He requires perfection not just
in our behavior. He requires perfection in our
motives. He requires perfection in our
hearts. Here's the summary of the law.
Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and all of your
mind and all of your soul and implied in that clearly is all
the time. That's God's standard. That's
what he requires. And he's no respecter of persons.
Any man that falls short of that standard will suffer the wrath
and judgment of God. I'm so thankful for that. The first time we read in the
Bible of respect as it relates to God is the offerings that
Cain and Abel brought before God. Cain took the works of his
hands. He had been working that garden. planted the seed, he fertilized
it, he watered it, he tilled it, he pulled the weeds and the
first fruits that he had, he brought them to God. And the Bible says that God had
no respect for him. He had no respect for his offering. And then Abel. brought the firstling of his
flock. He took a lamb. He slew it. He shed its blood. He brought God a blood offering.
His father had taught him that. Adam had made sure that both
those boys understood as a result of what Adam did in the garden,
that the only way God's going to be appeased with his wrath
and judgment is a blood sacrifice. A lamb has to die, a spotless
lamb, an innocent lamb has to die in order to satisfy God's
judgment. He's no respecter of persons.
He requires that from every single individual. And we'll be like
Cain if we try to come before him based on anything else. Anything that we have produced
with our hands, or with our works, or with our desires, or with
our hopes, or our sorrow, our repentance, or our faith, nothing's
going to, God has one standard. Perfect righteousness, and the
only thing that will cover our sin is the shed blood of his
son. Let me show you that in Exodus
chapter 2. Here's another place where the
Lord makes it clear that he's not a respecter of persons, that
all men must come to him. Exodus chapter 2, look at verse 23. And it came to pass in the process
of time that the king of Egypt died and the children of Israel
sighed by reason of the bondage and they cried and their cry
came up to God by reason of the bondage and God heard their groaning
and God remembered his covenant with Abraham and with Isaac and
with Jacob and God looked upon the children of Israel and God
had respect unto them. So the Lord saw the sufferings
of his children, his people, and he heard their cry and he
didn't have respect for them because they cried or because they were suffering, he had respect
for them for his covenant's sake. He remembered the covenant. He
remembered the promise that he had made to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. And God had respect for the children
of Israel for that reason. And nothing's changed. Nothing's
changed. David said, although it be not
so with my house, God, don't judge me based on anything in
my house. either how the tabernacle of
this flesh or my family or my home. Lord, if you judge me based
on any of that, I'm not going to measure up to your standard.
Although my house may not so with God, yet he has made with
me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things. And sure, David
said, this is all my salvation and all my desire. God has respect
for us. If God accepts us. It'll be because
of a covenant promise that he made to his son to give him a
bride. It'll be because of the fulfillment
of that covenant promise when the Lord Jesus Christ, in that
covenant of grace, before time ever began, agreed to be the
surety of his people. and was, as God defines him,
the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. So there we have
that blood sacrifice. Even before the lamb was killed
in the garden, the Lord Jesus, it all points back to Christ.
Christ is the standard. He's the standard. So he either
stands in our stead and is our righteousness before God, or
we'll have to be like Cain and offer the works of our hands
and find ourselves wanting. Here the Lord said, I had respect
for my people because I remembered my covenant. When Absalom was banished and
Joab wanted Absalom to be brought back into fellowship with the
king's family, and so Joab sends a woman of Tekoa to David to
plead for Absalom. And after all that takes place
in 2 Samuel chapter 14, here's what Joab said. Neither doth God respect any
person, Yet, yet doth he devise means that his banished be not
expelled from him. God is not a respecter of persons,
but he's provided means so that those who have been banished
do not have to remain separated from him. That means is the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the means. And so he hasn't
changed his standard. He has not become a respecter
of persons in that he allows one person to get in on a lower
standard than another. The standard's the same. He is
no respecter of persons when it comes to what he requires.
But he is a respecter of persons in that he respects his son.
He respects his son and all those that are found in his son. The Lord Jesus Christ, our sin
bearer, satisfying the justice of God who saw the travail of
his soul and said, I'm satisfied. My justice has been fulfilled.
My righteousness has been established. I don't have to lower my standard
of holiness. The Lord tells us in Romans chapter
8, there is now therefore no condemnation to them that are
in Christ Jesus. And David said in the Psalms,
mark the perfect man. Mark the perfect man, take notice
of him, set your affections on him, mark him for the end of
that man is peace with God. That's what faith does, faith
marks the perfect man and faith rests in the perfection of the
Lord Jesus Christ for its righteousness before God and for the satisfying
of His justice and the payment for their sin. Psalm 32 verse 4, speaking of
the Lord Jesus Christ, He is the rock, His work is perfect,
for all His ways are judgment, A God of truth and without iniquity,
just and right is He. Just and right is He. God doesn't
lower His standard to save anybody. God meets that standard in Christ
for those whom He has chosen. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
blessed man spoken of in Psalm 1, the man who never walked after
the counsel of the ungodly. He never stood in the way of
sinners. He never sat in the seat of the
scornful. He was like a tree planted by
rivers of water. His delight was always in the
law of the Lord, day and night. He meditated on his father and
whatsoever he did prospered. Prospered. What was his prosperous
work? You know, I was thinking about
how many people are going to be celebrating Easter this coming
Sunday and yet the vast majority of them have no idea what the
resurrection means. They either believe in it as
a historical event. I asked someone just the other
day if they understood what the resurrection was and, well, he
died to save us of our sins. Well, who did he die to save
from their sins? Who did he die for? Did he actually
save anybody? Did he actually accomplish it?
Was he actually, as the scripture says here, did he actually prosper? No, the father raised him from
the dead because the father could not allow his holy one to see
corruption because the father was satisfied. The work was finished. What was his work? To save his
people from their sins. That's what he came to do. And
the resurrection is the only evidence that the believer needs
to know that the Lord Jesus Christ was successful. He was successful
in that work. He saved his people from their
sins. That's why he was raised from
the dead. He conquered death. He got the victory. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.
Speak ye comfortably unto Jerusalem. Tell her that her warfare is
accomplished. I was thinking about, you know,
it's been over 75 years since the end of World War II and we
still recognize the end of the war and we still celebrate it.
Nothing's ever said of the shameful way in which we pulled out of
Saigon in 1975. Nothing said about that. No celebration
about it. Why? Because if the war is not
won, the whole war, then you can't celebrate anything. You don't celebrate the victory
of a battle if you lost the war. The Lord Jesus Christ won the
war. He won the war. Their warfare
is accomplished. Isaiah chapter 40. It's accomplished. Satan is defeated. Sin is put
away. Righteousness is established.
Oh, here we are. God is not a respecter of persons. It's the same standard for all
men. God has respect for his son and all those who in faith point
to him and glorify him. This is my beloved son in whom
I'm well pleased. And so, faith glorifies Christ. Faith doesn't glorify itself.
Faith doesn't take credit for itself. Faith doesn't take comfort
in the fact that it did something, even to believe. Faith marks the perfect man. Faith points to Christ. faith
gets all glory to the Lord Jesus Christ and God has respect of
his son and all those who glory in his accomplished work of salvation. Notice Go back with me to our
text in 1 Peter 1. Verse 17, and if you call on
the Father, who without respect to persons, judges according
to every man's work. If we see that our only perfection
before God can only be found in Christ, then the only work that can be
done that God has respect for is that which is done in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I remind you of our passage in
Colossians that we looked at a week or two ago. Turn back
with me to Colossians chapter three. Look at verse 17, and whatsoever
you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the
Father by him. You see, God says he's observing
our works. That's what our text says. If
you call upon the Father without respect to person, judges according
to every man's work. So the only way that a work can
be a good work before God is if it's done in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God by him. We can't produce
a good work. We offer these things. We are
his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which
he's ordained. And if we're zealous for good
works, But to be zealous for good works is to be zealous for
the glory of Christ. It's not to take glory in any
work. Faith doesn't take glory in its
work. Faith glories in Christ. And what it does, it does in
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Knowing that God is not a respecter
of persons, he doesn't give one a pass and say, well, that work
That works acceptable. Psalm 138 verse 6 says, Though
the Lord be high, yet hath he respect for the lowly,
but the proud he knoweth afar off. We glory in something we've done.
We're just expressing our pride. God puts into the heart faith,
fear of God, faith, trusting Christ and wanting him to get
the glory. Then the Lord says the Lord has
respect for that. He has respect for that. Notice in verse 17, and if you
call on the Father, if we come to the Father, we
come in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ always, looking
in faith to Christ, giving all glory to Christ for our salvation,
for our works, our whatever. He's without respect to persons
and he judges every man according to his work. Pass the time of your sojourning
here in fear. Thought a little bit about this
thing of fear. There's basically three kinds
of fear. There's natural fear, which is
kind of, self-preservation. Some of it might be reasonable,
some of it might be unreasonable, but we all have natural fears
of things. If you can't swim, perhaps you're
afraid of water. I talked to somebody recently,
they didn't want to go out in a boat because they couldn't
swim. And they were very skittish about being in a boat. That's
reasonable. Maybe you're afraid of snakes
or spiders or heights or something. That's just natural fears. That's
not what the Lord is talking about when he said fear in the
Lord. Then there's sinful fear. Sinful fear is what happens when
our conscience shames us and convicts us and when we in an
attempt to salve our conscience, we do what Adam did, we run from
God and we hide. Now what sinful fear does? Sinful
fear will make us hide, it'll make us lie, it'll cause us to be paralyzed
and withdraw from any kind of commitment, it'll cause resentment
and it'll cause us to cover things up with pride, that's what sinful
fear does. And all natural men know what
natural fear and sinful fear is. As a matter of fact, sinful
fear is what man-made religion is built on. Man-made religion
is built on sinful fear. Religious hucksters know that
men have a conscience and that they feel guilty and shame for
the fact that they're not doing as they ought and so they give
them, you know, religious works to perform in order to try to
calm those fears and sad that conscience. That's what works religion's
all about, playing off of men's sinful fear. And all men know
what natural fear is and all men know what sinful fear is.
But only the regenerate, only the child of God has any understanding
of what the fear of God is. Look at our text. Pass the time of your sojourning
here in fear. Brethren, this is not a slavish
fear that paralyzes and shames and causes one to hide and lie
and do all the things that sinful fear does. To the contrary, this
fear will cause us to run to Christ. This fear of God will
cause us to believe on Christ. This fear of God causes us to
speak the truth. It causes us not to be paralyzed
and withdraw from any sort of commitment. The fear of God causes
a believer to say, Lord, what would you have me to do? Here
am I, Lord, send me. Is there any possible way I can
be of any service to your glory? You see,
the fear of God has just the opposite response that sinful
fear has. The fear of the Lord, scripture
says, is the beginning of wisdom, the beginning of understanding,
the beginning of having some knowledge of the fact that God
has a standard of righteousness that he does not adjust for anybody. He is not a respecter of persons. He's God. If I'm going to approach
him, I've got to come to him on his terms and his terms only. And the greatest fear of God
is the fear of standing in his presence without Christ as your
advocate, without his righteousness being satisfied in your substitute,
without a sin bearer, without a surety to stand before. This is the fear of God. The
thought of standing in the presence of God based on something that
I've done? Something that I've produced?
Well, he says that he judges every man according to his works,
so let me just do more good works and he'll judge me righteous.
No, he won't. Not if you fear God. You know he won't. You know
he can't. He judges all men by the standard of his righteousness
in Christ. And when God puts his fear in
our hearts, it causes us to flee to Christ, flee to Christ. The fear of God is just believing
God, just believing God. First time the fear of God is
mentioned in the Bible is in the beginning chapters of Exodus
when Pharaoh sent out a decree because the Egyptians were multiplying
and Pharaoh was afraid that the Egyptians were going to outnumber
the slaves, were going to outnumber the slave owners and the Egyptians
would would overpower them and take over and so Pharaoh put
out a decree to have all the babies that were born to the
Hebrew women killed. And the scripture says, but the
midwives who helped out in the birth of these babies feared
God. They feared God, they believed
that these were God's people and they wanted a part of doing
something that would offend God. The second mention of the fear
of God in the Bible is found in Exodus chapter 14. Turn with
me there, Exodus 14. Look at verse 31. Oh, I hope
the Lord will give us eyes to see the truth of this wonderful
declaration. And Israel saw that great work
which the Lord did upon the Egyptians. And the people feared the Lord
and believed the Lord and his servant Moses. They saw the destruction that
God had done to the Egyptians. They saw them drowned in the
Red Sea, Pharaoh and his chariots. What is that a picture of? When
the scripture says, and Israel? That's the church, that's the
believer, that's the princes of God. And Israel saw the great
work which the Lord did upon Egyptians. When the Lord Jesus
Christ bowed his mighty head on Calvary's cross and he said,
it is finished, the taskmasters of the law were destroyed. The
law was fulfilled. Christ satisfied all the demands
of the law. so that the standard of God's
righteousness could be upheld and the standard of God's justice
could be fulfilled. And so when Israel saw what God
did in destroying the Egyptians, they feared God and they believed
and they believed his messenger. Man is declaring the truth about
what God has said in his word. Then the fear of God believes
that truth, not because it's coming from the voice of a particular
man, but because it's God's word. It's God's word. We should believe
God, don't we? Someone says, well, what do you
believe about this or that? Whatever God says is what we
believe. It's what we believe. We can't
believe otherwise. Why? Because God has put the
fear of him in our hearts and we believe him and we trust him. We would never entertain the
thought of trying to come before him based on anything other than
the person and work of his son. If you call on the Father, who, without respect of any person,
judges every man's work. Pass the time of your sojourning
here with fear. Our Heavenly Father, thank you
for your word. Lord, we pray that you would
speak liberating truths to our hearts. Might we find ourselves coming
boldly before your throne of grace to find help in our time
of need. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.
232, let's stand together 232. ? Christ our Redeemer died on the
cross ? ? Died for the sinner, paid all his due ? ? Sprinkle
your soul with the blood of the Lamb ? ? And I will pass, will
pass over you ? ? When I see the blood When I see the blood,
when I see the blood, I will pass, I will pass over you. ? Chiefest of sinners, Jesus
will save ? All he has promised, that he will do ? Wash in the
fountain, open for sin ? And I will pass, will pass over you
? When I see the blood When I see the blood, when I see the blood,
I will pass, I will pass over you. ? Judgment is coming, all
will be there ? Each one receiving justly his due ? Hide in the
saving, sin-cleansing blood ? And I will pass, will pass over you
? When I see the blood When I see the blood, when I see the blood,
I will pass, I will pass over you. Oh, great compassion, oh, boundless
love, oh, loving kindness, faithful and true. Find peace and shelter
under the blood, and I will pass, will pass over you. When I see the blood, when I
see the blood, when I see the blood, I will pass, I will pass
over you.