Good morning. No need to apologize
for singing that hymn again. I could sing that hymn every
time we come together. What a glorious God we serve
in a great gospel of grace that he has established in the covenant
of grace. A covenant, we just sang about
God's covenant. And a covenant is a promise.
And in the Bible, there are two covenants spoken of. There's
the covenant of works and there's the covenant of grace. The covenant
of works goes like this. If you will believe, I will save
you. You'll make that promise to God.
God will reward you with salvation. The covenant of grace says, I
have saved you and you will believe. What a difference. The covenant
of works goes something like this. If you repent, God will
forgive you. If you'll make that promise,
God will reward you. That's a covenant of works. The
covenant of grace says, I have forgiven you and you will repent. The covenant of works goes something
like this. If you serve God, he'll bless you. And the covenant
of grace says, I have blessed you and you will serve me. You see, our salvation is not
determined by any promise that we make to God. It's completely
determined by the promise that the father made to give his son
a bride. The son entered into that promise
as our covenant surety and promised to redeem those whom the father
had given to him. And the Holy Spirit entered into
that covenant promise and said, I'll go and I'll make them willing
in the day of my power. And they will believe. Now that's
a promise that you and I didn't have anything to do with. That
happened before time ever began. God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Spirit. That's that hymn we just sang.
Read the words of that hymn again if maybe you haven't heard it
before or you're not sure what it means. It is so simple and
so clear. David's last words, although
my house be not so with God, yet he has made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things, and sure, this is all my salvation
and all my desire, though he make it not to grow. What hope? And David took his last breath
and died with that confession. That's the believer's confession.
Our houses are not as they ought to be. The tabernacle of this
flesh, our homes, our families, yet the hope of our salvation
is based on his covenant promise to us. I want us to open our
Bibles together to 2 Timothy 2. 2 Timothy 2. Pray the Lord will enable us this morning to rejoice
and to worship Him for His faithfulness. You see, this covenant of grace
is not based on our faithfulness to God. It's based on His faithfulness
to us. And so He gets all the glory.
And we're going to be looking at a faithful saying this morning
in 2 Timothy. chapter two. I want us to go
to the Lord in prayer together. Jennifer Dunbar's mother passed
away this morning at five o'clock, and she'd been ill for some time,
but you never prepared for the loss of your mother. So, Jennifer,
we love you and pray the Lord will comfort your heart this
morning. Let's pray together. Our heavenly
Father, we come into thy holy presence,
thanking you for your faithfulness. Thanking you, Lord, for the faithful
work of redemption that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished on
Calvary's cross. Thanking you, Lord, for the faithful
work of regeneration by where your Holy Spirit comes and opens
the eyes of our understanding and gives us hearts to believe,
Lord, your faithfulness in keeping us. from falling. Your faithfulness in presenting
us faultless, unblameable, and unreprovable in Christ. Lord, we rejoice in knowing that
when we believe not, you remain faithful. Lord, let us place all the hopes of our immortal
soul on thy faithfulness. Lord, we pray for Jennifer and
her children and Dunbar family and ask, Lord, that you would
comfort their hearts as they rest their hope in you in the
time of grief and loss that they're knowing this morning. And we are confident, Lord, that
you are able and that you are merciful and compassionate towards
your children. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. We know that all scripture, all
scripture is given by inspiration of God. It is profitable, the
scripture says, for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and
instruction and righteousness. that the man of God may be thoroughly
furnished unto all good works. God's Word is all we need. And
it's written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Man did not come up with this
book. Holy men of God wrote as they
were moved by the Spirit of God. And we know that God's Word is
pure and perfect. And every word of it, every word
of it, not one word of it is more important than another. It's all true and faithful. And yet there are times in God's
word where the Lord summarizes great sections of his word into
very simple statements. For instance, when the Lord said,
verily, verily, I say unto you, Now we know that no man ever
spoke like the Lord Jesus Christ. Every word that proceeded out
of his mouth was pure and perfect. It was nothing less than the
word of God. And yet the disciples knew that when the Lord said,
verily, verily, I say unto you, that he was about to summarize
a lot of the things that he had said into one poignant statement. And that's what we have this
morning. Three times in the book of 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus,
we have what's called a faithful saying, a faithful saying. And what the Lord by the Holy
Spirit has done is he's given to us a condensed summary of
the truth of the gospel in a few words. The first one you remember
is in 1 Timothy 1, verse 15, where the Lord said, this is
a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. It's worthy
to be completely accepted by all, but not all will believe
it. What does he say? Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Paul identified
himself as the chief of all sinners. And he took great comfort in
knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to save men
like him. Oh, the only time the gospel
is of any profit to us, the only time it's fresh and new and alive
is when we come to the gospel as a sinner. one who has no righteousness
in and of themselves. But men by nature don't see themselves
as sinners, do they? God has to do that. It's a miracle
of grace in the heart when the Lord causes you to see that everything
about me, everything about me, every thought, every intent of
the heart, every action, every word that I speak falls short
of the glory of God. And God calls it sin. And there's
only one who is without sin, holy, harmless. That is the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the only one that can make
me acceptable in the presence of a holy God. He must impute
to me his righteousness. He must stand in my stead before
God and present himself on my behalf. If I'm to have acceptance
with God, it must be in the beloved. There's no way I'm going to be
accepted before God any other way than to be found in him,
not having my own righteousness, which is by my law keeping, but
that righteousness, which is by the faithfulness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so the Lord has summarized
much of his word here in 1 Timothy. Oh, the second time that this
faithful saying is mentioned is in 1 Timothy chapter four,
verse nine, where the Lord says, this is a faithful saying that
godliness is profitable to all. That this hope of being found
in Christ and following after him and looking to him walking
in his light is profitable in every way. It's not just profitable
to the salvation of our souls, yes it is, and that's the that's
the glorious hope that we have, but it's profitable in all things. The third one that is mentioned
is found in Titus chapter three, where the Lord says, this is
a profitable saying, not by works of righteousness, which we have
done, but according to his mercy, he hath saved us. Now, the one
we're going to look at this morning in 2 Timothy chapter two is unique
in that it's written in poetic rhythm. which leads us to believe that
this was a hymn. Verses 11, 12, and 13 of 2 Timothy
chapter two was a hymn. Caleb, maybe you can put these
words to music sometime, or Adam. But in the original Greek language,
this was written in poetic, language and prose, if you will. And it was a hymn that probably,
you know, we could say maybe this is the first hymn that the
believer sung outside of the Psalms that we have. And so here
the Lord tells us about those things that are faithful. And these faithful things are
found only in the one who himself is faithful. You see, faith is
resting all of your hope in the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's not our faith that saves
us, it's Christ that saves us. Our faith didn't go to the cross,
Christ went to the cross. And yet the Lord honors faith,
number one, because it's a gift from him that he gives us, but
also because it honors Christ. Faith is, true saving faith is
the only thing that gives to the Lord Jesus Christ all the
glory for salvation. And so the Lord is pleased when
he sees faith in the heart of his children because that faith
honors his son and gives all the glory for their salvation
to Christ. His faithfulness. Lamentation
chapter three, verse 21. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. We're going to conclude this
hour by singing that hymn number 40. in your hymnal, great is
thy faithfulness. And that passage in Lamentation
is where the hymn writer found the words to inspire that hymn. Great is thy faithfulness. The Lord has been so faithful
to keep us. He was faithful to call us. He
was faithful in the covenant of grace to reveal Christ to
us. He was been faithful to keep
us. 25 years ago today was the first time that we met together
as a congregation, and we give to him all the glory for his
faithfulness. Whatever faithfulness we have,
he gave it to us. and he gets the credit for it,
and he gets the praise for it, and he gets the glory for it.
We're not here to praise any man for his faithfulness. God
gets all the glory. Deuteronomy chapter seven, verse
nine says, know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God,
the faithful God. which keepeth covenant and mercies. Know that the Lord thy God, he
is God, the faithful God that keepeth covenant and mercies. He's faithful to his promises.
How many promises have you made to God that you haven't kept?
You want the hope of your salvation based on your promises? Fickled
as you are? Fickled as I am? Unfaithful as
we are? Oh, we can rest in great hope
and comfort in knowing that our salvation is because of his faithfulness. Revelation chapter 19, verse
11, John saw the Lord Jesus Christ in the vision coming down from
heaven and riding on a white horse. And he that sat upon the
horse, the scripture says, was called faithful and true. Faithful and true. That's his
name. One of the names given to the
Lord Jesus Christ in the scriptures is faithful. He's faithful. Oh, it's his faithfulness that
causes us to want to be faithful, is it not? Listen to what Paul
said in 1 Thessalonians 5, the very God of peace sanctify you
wholly. And that's not H-O-L-Y, it's
W-H-O-L-L-Y. May the God of peace sanctify
you completely. And I pray God, your whole spirit
and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful as he that called you,
faithful as he that called you, and he also will do it. He will
do it. What was he so faithful to do?
Well, look at our hymn. This is a hymn starting in verse
11. It is a faithful saying, for
if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him. Now in the
covenant of grace, God's elect people have always been seen
by God in Christ. in Christ. So that when the Lord
Jesus Christ lived out a faithful life of perfect obedience to
the Father, so did all of those who are found in him. He is our He is our seminal head. He's the head of the body. Just
as every member of your body functions under the direction
of your head, so the body of Christ went everywhere the head
went. And God reckoned his perfect
obedience to be credited and merited to those for whom he
lived. Not only is that true of his
life, but it's true of his death. When the Lord Jesus Christ went
to Calvary's cross and bore in his body the sins of God's people,
all those that he died for were in him on Calvary's cross. We're going to celebrate baptism
this morning. And that's Romans chapter six
is what baptism is all about. Buried with him in baptism and
raised again to walk a new life in Christ Jesus. And when Paul
the Apostle was longing to apprehend that which had apprehended him,
he said, he said, oh, that I might know him, the fellowship of his
suffering, the power of his resurrection, that when Christ died, I died. That's what he said. Paul said,
I am crucified with Christ. when Christ was crucified 2,000
years ago, all those whom God chose in the covenant of grace
died in Him. That's the gospel. The salvation of God's people
was accomplished at Calvary's cross. It was accomplished. Paul said, I'm crucified with
Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but it's Christ that
liveth in me. The life that I now live, I live
by the faith of the son of God who loved me and died for me.
You see, it all goes back to his faithfulness, doesn't it? So the Lord said, if we be dead
with him, we shall also live with him. You remember when James and John
wanted to be seated at the right and the left hand of the Lord
Jesus Christ when he entered into his kingdom. At this point,
they still thought that the kingdom of God was going to be an earthly
kingdom. Even at the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, is
it time now for you to establish your kingdom? It wasn't until
Pentecost that they were able to understand that this kingdom
was a spiritual kingdom, it was a heavenly kingdom. But James
and John said, Lord, we want to be chosen now to be seated
at thy right hand and at thy left hand when you enter into
thy kingdom. And the other disciples heard
what they were saying and they got upset. They were jealous. They thought, oh no, not them,
us. They were fighting over who was going to be at the right
and left hand of the Lord. And the Lord said to them, are
you able to drink of the cup that I'm going to drink of? Are
you able to be baptized with the baptism that I'm going to
be baptized with?" And they said, ignorantly and proudly, they
said, Lord, we are. Whatever you go through, we'll
go through with you. Isn't that what Peter said? Peter said,
Lord, they may forsake you, but not me. And that very night he
denied him three times, didn't he? I love what our Lord said
to those disciples, indeed you shall drink of the cup that I'm
going to drink of, and you shall be baptized with the baptism
that I'm going to be baptized with. Now what was he talking
about, the drink and the baptism? He was talking about his death.
He was talking about drinking the cup of sin, which he asked
the father, if there be any way it can pass from him, let it
be at the, in the garden when he prayed it and agonized with
drops of blood coming out of sweat. Father, if there be any
way this cup can pass from me. He knew that when he went to
Calvary's cross, that he was going to drink the bitter dregs
of the sins of God's people. And he was going to suffer the
wrath of God's judgment and justice. And he was going to be forsaken
of his father. The Lord Jesus Christ, who never
knew sin, made sin. that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. And what our Lord was saying
to those disciples, indeed, you shall, you shall drink of that
cup. Oh, and you shall be baptized
with the baptism, which I'm going to be, he's talking about his
death. Now, does that mean that we have to somehow drink the
bitter dregs of our sin and suffer the sorrow and penalty of our
sin? And somehow we have, no, we died
in Him. He said, indeed you shall. Indeed
you shall. When I drink of that cup and
when I'm baptized with that baptism, you're going to be in me. You
see how this is a summary of the gospel? This faithful saying,
if you be dead with him, you shall also be made alive with
him. So that when the Lord Jesus Christ
went into the grave, we went into the grave. And when he rose
from the dead, the scripture calls him the firstborn among
many brethren. And he was offered up for our
offenses and raised again because of our justification. What hope? What hope? And the early church
sang these words as a hymn. They said, oh, this is a faithful
saying. This is a summary of all that
we believe. Turn with me back to the book
of Colossians. Colossians. Chapter two. Colossians chapter
two. And look with me at verse nine. For in him, in the Lord Jesus
Christ, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. The word
was made flesh. The word dwelt among us. We beheld
his glory as the begotten of the only father, the only begotten
of the father, full of grace and full of truth. The incarnation
of God almighty in the body of a man. that he might bear our
sins and satisfy God's justice. And so he says, in him dwell
the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And look at verse 10, and you
are complete in him, which is the head of all principality
and power, in whom also you are circumcised with the circumcision
made without hands in putting off the body of the sins of the
flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Now, drinking of the
cup, baptism and circumcision is all symbolic language referring
to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was cut off. He drank the bitter dregs of
God's wrath. He was baptized into death. Look at verse 12. buried with
him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with him through
the faith of the operation of God who hath raised him from
the dead." God Almighty could not allow
his Holy One to see corruption. He rewarded him for his faithfulness
by raising him from the dead. positive proof that God was satisfied
with what he had accomplished in saving his people. It is the
resurrection that is the only sign. You know, the unbeliever
says, show us a sign. And what does God, what did the
Lord Jesus say to those Pharisees who wanted a sign? No sign will
be given unto you except for the sign of Jonah, who spent
three days and three nights in the belly of the whale. God brought
him forth alive. That's the picture of Christ.
Jonah is a type of Christ going into the grave. That's the only
sign. We're not looking for a sign
outside of the declaration of the resurrection. We're gonna
see in the next hour that when Paul preached in Athens, he preached
the resurrection to those philosophers in Athens. Notice in verse 12 that this
being risen with him through the faith of the operation of
God. The Lord Jesus Christ's faith
was operating. This is his operation. And it's the operation of God
that puts faith in our hearts. This is the work of the spirit
of God. This is a work of grace. And
you, verse 13, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision
of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven
you all your trespasses. When were we forgiven? When were
we forgiven? When sin was put away by the
sacrifice of Christ once and for all. He buried them in the
depths of the sea, separates them from us as far as the east
is from the west, and he remembers them no more. This is the operation
of God. Oh, this is a faithful saying,
amen? Is this not a faithful saying?
Is this not a summary of much of what the scriptures teach?
about the gospel of God's free grace in the covenant promises
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? So we don't look to ourselves,
we don't look to our experiences, we don't, oh, what a blessed
thing it is. I wanna say this, when the Holy
Spirit speaks peace to your heart, what a great comfort He gives. And we, and we rejoice in those
times, don't we? When the spirit of God breaks
the heart and comforts the heart and no place does he do that
more effectually and frequently than when we're hearing the gospel
right now, right now. But the truth is that feelings
go, feelings come and feelings go, don't they? Feelings themselves
can be deceiving. My only warrant is the word of
God. None else is worth believing. Now, here's our hope. If we died in Christ, we shall
live in Christ. You had your Bibles open to Colossians.
I meant for you to look at Colossians chapter three. Turn to me there
real quick. Colossians chapter three. Look at verse one in Colossians
chapter three. If you then be risen with Christ,
if when Christ died on the cross, we died on the cross, if when
Christ raised from the dead, we raised from the dead. Say,
well, how do I know if he died for me? How do I know if he's
risen for me? The only hope that you have is that his death and
resurrection is your righteousness and your hope of salvation before
God, you've got no place else to go. Lord, we believe that
you're the Christ, the son of the living God. I've got no place
else to go and I can't add anything to or take anything away from
the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ for all my salvation.
That's the only place I can rest, right there. And so, if you then
be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above. Here's
how we know. If we raise with Christ, we're seeking those things
which are above. Where Christ is seated at the
right hand of God, we're setting our affections on things above,
not on things of the earth. You see, we've cast all our care
upon Him, our affections upon Him. Our love is for Him. Our
hope of salvation is in Him. Our righteousness is in Him. He's all and He's in all, and
we've got no place else to go. If you have been risen, set your
affections. Where is the Lord Jesus Christ
right now? He seated in the heavenlies,
at the right hand of the majesty on high. God his father said
to him, sit thou here at my right hand until I make thine enemies
thy footstool. For I made you to be a priest
forever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
glorious high priest who intercedes for us and he's seated at the
right hand of God. And so when we come into the
very presence of God, we're coming through our mediator, our substitute,
our sin bearer, our surety. That's how we set our affections
on things above. We have so many affections for
the things of this world, do we not? fleshly affections. But this is the work of the Spirit
of God, who gives the affections of the new heart, hope in Christ. Look at verse three, Colossians
chapter three, for you are dead. Romans chapter six, it says,
reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto
God. Reckon it to be so. Now in the
South, we use that word reckon to say, well, maybe this way
or maybe that way. I reckon so. You've heard people
talk like that. That's not what the Bible means
by reckon. This is a dead reckoning. This is what happens when the
satellites triangulate on your phone and identify your exact
location. It's a dead reckoning. And that's what God's saying,
reckon it to be so because it is. God Almighty has reckoned
it to be so, and it is so. So reckon yourselves to be dead
indeed unto sin. For you are dead, your life is
hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life,
Notice that the Bible doesn't say, Christ who shows us life,
a Christ who is the way to life, Christ who is our life. We have no life outside of Christ.
If I'm gonna live in the presence of a holy God, Christ is gonna
have to be my life, my whole life. I've got no life outside
it. You see, the scripture says in
Ephesians chapter two, verse one, that by nature we are dead
in our trespasses and sins. We were born into this world
dead. Our father Adam gave us a sinful nature and every person
born into this world was born spiritually dead. God has to
make them alive. He has to quicken them together
with Christ. And so the Lord says, when Christ,
who is our life, shall appear. When the Lord Jesus Christ splits
the eastern sky, and the trump of God sounds, and the dead in
Christ are raised, and those of us which are alive are caught
up together with them in the air to ever be with the Lord.
Christ who is our life, when he shall appear, we shall appear
with him in glory. Here's our hope. Here's our hope. Death is all around us. You're
dying. I'm dying. What hope is there
in this life? You know, we live a few years,
accumulate a few things, try to make a name for ourselves,
put a mark. And within a few days after our
funeral, everything goes back to normal, doesn't it? Everything
goes back to normal. When Christ, who is your life,
shall appear, we shall appear with him in glory. That's what the Lord is talking
about when he said, set your affections on things above. Oh, turn with me back to our
text. Verse 12, if we suffer, now, Paul said that I might know the
fellowship of his suffering, but that's not really what's
being talked about here, because that was kind of covered in the
first verse. That was covered in verse 11, the sufferings of
Christ on Calvary's cross. The word here is most, this is
the only place this word suffer is translated suffer in the New
Testament. It's usually translated to endure. Endure. to remain faithful to the end. And that's what the Lord's saying
here. If we endure to the end, the only sure, how many, how
many people have you known that you just were sure they were
believers. They talk like believers. They
acted like believers. They seem to rejoice. And then
within time, they just fell away. And they went out from us because
they were never of us, for had they been of us, they would have
remained. Isn't that what scripture says? So what's the evidence
of your salvation? What's the evidence of my salvation?
Enduring. Faithful to the end. How many
times we read in the scriptures, he that endureth to the end shall
be saved. When Paul preached the gospel
in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, he said, by which also you are saved if
you keep in mind the things that I preached unto you. You see,
now this enduring to the end is not a matter of our strength
or power or ability. It's the same power that enables
us to endure that enabled us to believe. It's the evidence
of salvation. Those whom God saves, He keeps. No question about it. No one
has ever been saved and then been lost. Everyone the Lord
Jesus Christ brings to saving faith in the Lord Jesus, he keeps. But here's what the Lord says.
If you endure to the end, it'll be evidence that I've saved you.
And if you don't, it'll be evidence that I didn't. Plain and simple. This is a faithful saying.