with hymn number 21 that's in
this gospel hymns spiral hymnal. If everyone would please stand
together. Hymn number 21, The Covenant, Ordered and Sure. God the Father and the Son and
the Spirit, three in one, in eternal ages past, made a covenant
sure and fast. God my Father chose His own in
the person of His Son, and ordained that I should be one with Him
eternally. God the Son agreed to come in
the flesh to bring me home. He would keep God's holy law. and retrieve me from the fall. Christ, in love so willingly,
stood as my great surety. For my price He offered blood
to appease the wrath of God. God the Spirit's heavenly dove
promised to come down in love, bringing life and peace and grace
to the chosen, purchased race. He seeks the lost, heals the
lame, and He brings us to the Lamb. By His mighty sovereign
call, God's elect are gathered all. This poor sinner is secure,
for God's covenant will endure. It is sealed by God's own word,
by His Spirit and His blood. Blessed Holy Covenant God, I
am yours by ties of blood, ties of grace and ties of love. Hold me to my God above. Please be seated. Good morning. What a joy it is
to be able to sing that hymn with some understanding. We have
a covenant keeping God. Man-made religion is all based
on a promise that man makes to God in hopes that God will reward
him for that promise. And Isaiah chapter 28 says that
the promise, that's what a covenant is, we just sang about a covenant.
Isaiah chapter 28 says that a covenant that we make with God will be
disannulled. He'll do away with it. God's
not impressed with our promises. The reason being that we never
keep them, do we? Every man's a liar. God alone
tells the truth. The covenant of grace, the hope
of our salvation, is based on a promise that God the Father
made to give His Son a bride. God the Son entered into that
covenant, as we just sang, as our surety. saying to the Father,
I'll redeem my bride. I'll pay the ransom price for
her, and that price will be my own precious blood. God the Holy
Spirit entered into that covenant. Now this all took place before
Adam was made. This is an everlasting covenant,
an eternal covenant. And God the Holy Spirit entered
into that promise with the Father and the Son and said, I'll make
them willing. I'll go in the power of the Spirit
of God and cause them to believe. And that's a covenant that can't
be broken. What great hope we have in knowing
that all our salvation is bound up in a promise that God made
to God. It's not your promise, not my
promise. It's God's promise. What hope.
What comfort. David said, although my house
be not so with God, yet He has made with me an everlasting covenant,
an everlasting promise, ordered in all things and sure, this
is all my salvation. This is all my salvation. This
is all my desire. not looking anywhere else, but
the promise that God made and the promise that God kept for
all the hope of my salvation. That's liberty, that's freedom,
that's hope, and that's joy. And that truth can only be heard
in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. where God is pleased
to gather together His called out saints and give them a preacher
that is faithful to preach the gospel. And 20 years ago today,
20 years ago today, we met together out of necessity. We met together
out of necessity for the first time. The Lord had taught several
of us the gospel. the hope of our salvation in
the covenant of His grace. And we had no choice but to meet
together. We wanted to come together. And
the Lord has been faithful to keep us together for twenty years.
And add to our number, I was looking among the men this morning
in the study, and we had about 20 men meeting in my study before
the service for prayer, and half of them were here 20 years ago. And I suspect that's about the
case among us here. But so very thankful, number
one, that the Lord taught us the gospel, that He's kept us
The one who saves us, keeps us. You can't fall away from grace.
He won't let you. And he's added to our number,
our fellowship, our family. We're so very thankful for that.
We're going to be, I thought it would be appropriate this
morning to ask ourselves, what do I think about the church? What do I think about the church? Psalm 122 will be our text. Psalm 122. Would you bow with me as we ask
the Lord's blessings? Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we're so very thankful that once again you've caused us to come
to this place with glad hearts, with hopeful expectations, that
you would speak to us, that you would reveal your glory and your
grace to us in the person of thy dear Son. Oh, how we pray
that your Holy Spirit would come now, would anoint your word,
would lead us into all truth, cause us to set our affections
on things above where Christ is seated at thy right hand.
Lord, we thank you for your mercy, your grace, and your faithfulness,
enabling us to preach the gospel now for 20 years. We ask, Lord,
that you would continue to keep us. We know that if you were
to take your hand off of us, Lord, we would fall away so quickly. We ask for your continued mercy. We prayed in Christ's name. Amen. What do you, what do I think
about the church? Everybody's got lots of different
reasons for going to church. I'm talking about the church.
The church. David, here's what he thought
about it. In verse 1 of Psalm 122, I was glad when they said
unto me, let us go unto the house of the Lord. God has described
his church as his house. This is his habitation. Now when
Solomon built the temple, he confessed that the heavens of
heavens could not contain the Lord. How on earth could a building
contain his glory? And we're not in any way suggesting
that this building is the house of God. What we're saying is
that this is the place where God's people, who are temples,
that's a building of the Holy Spirit, called out by grace,
gather together. This is the place where the Lord
is pleased to speak to their hearts, to manifest His glory
and His grace, and God's people are glad when it's time to come
together to the house of God. the church is also called some
of you speak spanish and uh... you know that the spanish word
for church is uh... a glacier i think i'm pronouncing
that right uh... that's actually a transliteration
of the word in the greek from which we get our word church
which is the word at classia and it literally translated means
the called out ones the called out ones. That's what the church
is. Those whom God has been pleased to call out of darkness into
His marvelous light. And if the Lord doesn't call
us out, we won't come out. We won't come out. Completely
dependent upon the Spirit of God to usher an irresistible
call on our hearts. And every one of God's called
out ones are part of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. How
dependent we are on Him to call us out. Joining the church is
not a decision. Coming to Christ is not a decision.
It's really not. The world talks about, you know,
the religious world in particular talks about making a decision
and letting Jesus come into your heart. Coming to Christ is not
a decision. You don't make Him Lord. He is
Lord. I was thinking about and and
one of the things we've tried to be faithful to for twenty
years is not to use the pulpit in anyway to be political and
please don't interpret the illustration that i'm about to give as a political
statement it's not uh... the lord has called his children
to to respect the governing authorities and we've tried to do that in
what whoever he has placed as our leader. But I was thinking
about this thing about Christ being Lord with the protests
that are taking place in our cities across this country. There's a minority of people
that are meeting together and they're chanting, not my president,
not my president. You know, they can say that all
they want, but unless they renounce their citizenship and leave this
country, he is their president or will be their president very
soon, and there's nothing they can do about it. The policies
that he makes and the authority that he has will be as it is
regardless of... And I was thinking about Luke
chapter 19 when the Lord When the Lord gave that parable of
a king who went away and left his kingdom to be taken care
of by his servants, and when the king left, they said, we
will not have this man reign over us. And when the king came
back, the scripture says in Luke chapter 19 that all those people
that stood in obstinance against the king were killed by the king. You know, to say He's not going
to reign over us doesn't change the fact that He's reigning over
you. You don't make Christ Lord of your life, He is Lord. And
He wasn't put into office by our vote. He was put into office
by God. God has sent the Lord, set the
Lord Jesus Christ on His holy hill. And He rules and He reigns
and all those who raise their fist in defiance to Him and say,
not my God, not my president, not my Lord, I'll not bow to
Him. When he comes, they will meet the end that the Lord describes
in Luke chapter 19, when the king came home and said, take
all those obstinate subjects and kill them, every one of them.
The spirit of God causes the elect of God, those whom God
chose in the covenant of grace to have a willing heart. And
they said, yes, He is my Lord. I've got no choice about it.
He reigns over me. He reigns over the living and
over the dead. He's absolutely sovereign. And God's people like it that
way. They take great comfort and great hope and great joy.
And David said, I was glad. I was glad. Twenty years ago,
we were glad to meet in pedals, weren't we? And we didn't have
a choice. If there had been someone else
preaching the gospel, we would have gladly gone and met with
them, but we didn't know of anybody. And so the Lord just drew us
together. And we didn't do it because we
were trying to start a new work or trying to reach the world
for Christ or anything like that. The Lord had taught us the gospel. And the gospel was the only thing
that made us glad. the hope that he had put into
our hearts, that our salvation was bound up completely in the
promise that God had made to God and the fulfillment of that
promise. What did David say? This covenant
is ordered in all things and sure. We needed a sure salvation. We needed a salvation that was
accomplished. to know that when the Lord Jesus
Christ bowed His mighty head on Calvary's cross and said,
it is finished. That was our hope. That was our
hope that the work of redemption was accomplished by the sacrifice
that Christ made on Calvary's cross. We just wanted to meet
around Him. We wanted to hear about Him and
for twenty years the Lord has enabled us to. The Lord Jesus
Christ said, and I, If I be lifted up, will draw all men to myself."
We so want to exalt Christ. We just want Him to be lifted
up. And that's what David saw, and he said, I was glad. I was
glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the
Lord. Now that's one title that the
Lord uses for His church, His house. His tabernacle, the place. Our God is omnipresent. He's everywhere. He's not confined
to a space. He rules over the living and
the dead. But just like your house is a
special place for you, isn't it? It's a place where you can
let down your hair. It's a place where you can be
at rest. It's a place where you can have
fellowship with your family members in a way that you can't have
anywhere else. And so it is in the house of God. This is where
His children gather together and where He's pleased to manifest
His grace and His glory. And so we're You know, here's
my question. Are you glad? Are you glad? And this word, you can look it
up, the word that's in the text translated glad is most often
translated rejoice. So it doesn't mean that I'm just,
well, I'm just glad to be here. Just glad, no, I'm rejoicing
to be here. My heart is full to be here.
There's no place like this anywhere else. You know, Paul said, Rejoice
in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. But
there's a certain rejoicing that takes place when the gospel is
being preached, when God's people are joining their hearts and
their voices together in worship. and their lips become the testimony
of His grace, and their hearts are bound up together, there's
a rejoicing. So, what is the church to you?
What it was to David, it was the house of God, it was the
bride of Christ, it was the elect of God, it was the called out
ones. It was the place where God was
pleased to make Himself known to His children. It's Christ's church. It's not
your church. It's not my church. It's not
any man's church. It's His church. When the Lord asked the apostles,
He said, whom do men say that I am? Remember what Peter said? Peter said, well, some say that
thou art Elijah. Some say that you're John the
Baptist. He had just been put to death by Herod. And some say
that God has brought John the Baptist back to life. Some say
that you're one of the other prophets. Everybody's speculating
about who the Lord Jesus Christ is. And what did the Lord say
to Peter? He said to Peter what he's saying
to you and me right now. Whom do you say that I am? Whom
do you say that I am? And Peter said, Thou art the
Christ, the anointed one, the one sent from God to accomplish
the salvation of God's people. That's what Christ means. Don't
call Jesus Christ unless you know what Christ means. What
it means is that He came as God's Messiah in the full power of
the Spirit of God to accomplish the salvation of His people.
He didn't come to make an offer of salvation to be made complete
by something that we do. He came in order to successfully
accomplish salvation. People will honor Him with their
lips by saying, well, Jesus is Christ. They'll call Him Jesus
Christ. And then they'll deny the very
essence of Christ by suggesting that He needs you to do something
for Him to be able to have His way. No, that's what Christ means. Christ means that He's the sovereign
Son of God in the full power of the Spirit of God to successfully
accomplish the salvation of His people. And Peter said, Thou
art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And what did the
Lord say to Peter? Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah,
flesh and blood did not reveal this to you. You didn't come
to this conclusion on your own. You didn't study it out. You
didn't figure it out on your own. My Father, which is in heaven,
has made it known unto you. And then the Lord said, And upon
this rock, Wasn't talking about Peter. He's
talking about the confession Peter just made. That Jesus is
the Christ, the rock. Upon this rock I shall build
my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
So, this is His church, and we acknowledge that every time we
come together. Lord, this church belongs to You. It's for Your
glory. It's for Your honor. You're the
foundation of everything in this church. The Scripture says that
Abraham looked for a city, that heavenly Jerusalem, that church
in heaven which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. And so we acknowledge the fact
that whatever has happened here, if this is Christ's church, it's
built on Him, and all the building that happens in putting together,
the scripture refers to the people of God as being lively stones.
And so the Lord is building His church. He's stacking stone upon
stone, mortaring those stones together with the love of Christ.
And He does it. We don't build the church of
God, He builds it. And we don't build it on our
opinions, or on our feelings, or on our doctrinal distinctives. He builds it on Himself. everything
else the scripture says is wood, hay, and stubble. Wood, hay,
and stubble is going to be burned up. If God's doing it, it's gold
and silver and precious stone. And those things endure forever. David said, oh I was rejoicing. I was so thankful. My heart was
full. I couldn't wait to get together
with God's people to hear about Christ. This is not a mutual
admiration society. We're not here to build one another
up. We're not here to, you know, to have programs and entertainment. We're here to lift up Christ. And that's all God's people want
to hear, is tell me about Christ. I've been so distracted from
Him in the world. There's nothing out there in
the world that points me to Christ. and my flesh has haunted me,
my sin has dogged me, the world has been contrary to me. I need
to know Christ. I need to hear about Him. And
I rejoice when they said unto me, let us go into the house
of the Lord. This is God's house. Is it that
to you? Is it that to you? Look at, let me ask this question. How many churches are there? If we look at the landscape of
religion today, we would conclude that there's lots of different
churches. You know, there's a cemetery
I pass in my area of town that's called All Faith Cemetery. You know? So you can be buried
there, I guess, whatever... whatever denominational perspective
you might hold to. What does the Bible say? What
does the Scripture say? What does God say about how many
churches there are? In Ephesians chapter 4, He says
there is one body. One body. Christ doesn't have
multiple bodies. He doesn't have multiple brides.
He has one body. He has one bride. One Spirit. The Spirit of God doesn't teach
some of His children one thing and the other of God's children
something else. The Scripture says in Isaiah
that the people of God will all see eye to eye. I'm so thankful for that. We're
not in lockstep conformity to a creed or a denomination, but
we are in lockstep conformity to Christ and the Spirit of God. There's one spirit. There's one
body and one spirit. Paul asked this question in Corinthians. He said, is Christ divided? Is
Christ divided? You see so much division in religion
today. But under the gospel of God's
free grace in the glorious person and finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ, there's unity. Christ is not divided. One body, one spirit, one calling. This is what God says in Ephesians
chapter 4. You can look it up. One calling. He calls us all the same way. Now, whatever our experiences
that we have in this life, they may be different, but the call
of grace is the same. In the call of grace, the Spirit
of God, the Scripture says, convicts the world of sin because they
believe not on Me. So that's the call of grace.
That's where it begins. God makes you to be a sinner. And every
one of God's children are made sinners by the Spirit of God.
And their sin is not because of bad behavior, that's the manifestation
of their sin. People think that sin is just
doing bad things. And that is, the scripture does
define sin that way as a verb. But when the Spirit of God convicts
you, when He calls you, there's one calling, Ephesians chapter
4. The Spirit of God shows you that your sin goes much deeper
than your behavior. That your behavior is nothing
but an outward manifestation of the sin problem that you have
in your heart, and that's rooted in unbelief. Unbelief. Lord, I've never believed. I've
never believed. I've believed in myself, I've
believed in the world, I've believed the politics, you know, whatever,
but I've never believed Christ. I've never cast my soul on Him
wholly. I've never trusted Him with all
my heart. I've not been able to do that.
Why? Because faith is a work of grace.
For by grace are you saved through faith. And that faith is not
of yourself. To believe on God is a work that
God has to do in your heart. You don't... Faith is not the
means to salvation. That's what the world teaches.
If you believe on God, then He'll save you. No! No! Faith is not the cause of
salvation. It's the result of it. And it
makes a world of difference. You see, faith is either something
you bring to God that He rewards you for by saving you. That's
what the world says. Believe on Christ and He'll save
you. Or faith is a work of grace.
God does in the heart when the Holy Spirit calls you out of
darkness into His marvelous light. Remember we said the church is
the called out ones. In Ephesians chapter 4 there's
one body, there's one spirit, there's one calling. There's
one calling. Has God made you to be a sinner?
Has He caused you to see that, Lord all my problems are rooted
in the fact that I can't believe, I can't believe you. I'm not
been able to believe you and even after the Lord makes you
a believer you know they're still you you you cry Lord I believe
help thou mine unbelief that's my problem my problem is all
rooted in my inability to believe the scripture says whatever's
not a faith is sin whatever's not a faith is sin why was Christ
holy harmless undefiled and separate from sinners why was he that
way because he had perfect faith He believed God with all of his
heart and all of his mind and all of his soul. And God said,
there's what I require. That's my beloved son. In him,
I am well pleased. If we're going to be accepted
before God, we're going to have to be found in Christ. God requires
perfect faith. And when He gives us faith, we
cast all our hopes on the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the church. That's the church. This is not
religion. It's not denomination. It's not,
you know, it's not entertainment and feel-good kind of stuff.
It's Christ. It's Christ being preached, and
Christ being lifted up, and God's people bowing before Him. When
the Spirit of God comes, He will convict the world of sin, because
they believed all on me, of righteousness, because I go to my Father. We're
talking about that one calling now. What is it that every child
of God has in common? The Lord has convicted me that
my problem is my unbelief. I need Christ. Everything about
my old man, everything about my nature, everything about my
flesh is sinful. I need one who is sinless to
stand in my stead before God of righteousness because I go
to my Father. The Scripture says that God's
Word will not return unto him void. And the Lord Jesus Christ
is the Word of God. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word
became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory as
of the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace,
full of grace and full of truth. The word will not return void
when the Lord Jesus Christ ascended from Mount of Olives in Acts
chapter one and went back up to heaven. He took with him the
names of every person for whom he lived and died. And he ever
lives right now in heaven to intercede for them. Christ is
my righteousness. I have no righteousness before
God apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. All my righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. So this one calling, we're talking
about the church being the called out ones. There's one body, there's
one spirit, there's one calling. The calling is the work of the
Spirit of God making you to be a sinner because of your unbelief. Making you to acknowledge Christ
for all your righteousness. I don't have any righteousness.
Only hope that I have that God's going to be pleased if He looks
to Christ for me. That's what surety is. We sang
about that at the beginning of this service. Christ being our
surety. And then what did He say? And
of judgment. Of judgment because the Prince
of this world has been judged. Sin's been put away. Satan's
been defeated. You don't defeat Satan. You don't
do something in order to make God put your sin away. When the
Lord Jesus Christ bowed his head on Calvary's cross and said,
it is finished, when he shed his precious blood, that blood
that Christ shed covers all the sins of all of God's people.
Satan was defeated, sin was put away, judgment is satisfied. That's the calling. Is that your
calling? Is that your hope? If it is,
you're part of the church and you rejoice in being able to
get together with those people that are your brothers and sisters
in Christ. You don't have this anywhere
else. If you're part of the church, you've got a fellowship with
God's people. You may not even be able to speak the same language
that they speak, but there's a bond in your heart with them
that you don't have with anybody else in this world. You don't
have this bond with your blood relatives, with your neighbors,
your friends, your coworkers. You don't have this with anybody.
If you're part of the church, I know that's your experience.
If it's not your experience, then church for you is nothing
more than a place and a religious experience. One Lord. There's one body, one
calling, one spirit, one calling, one Lord. We don't have different
Jesuses. Now there's a whole lot of Jesuses
out there in the world. No question about it. Satan is happy, happy to take
the name of Jesus if he can keep people from the true Christ,
the one and only Savior of sinners, and that's what Jesus means.
You shall call His name Jesus for He shall save His people. That's what He came to do. Accomplish
the salvation of His people. And He's the Lord. He's the one
we bow to. He's the one we worship. There's
one faith. One baptism. One God and Father
of us all who is above all and through all and in you all. If you're part of the church,
you're like David. You rejoice in the opportunity
to gather together with God's people who have Christ in them
as the hope of their glory. And they fellowship together
around the gospel of God's free grace. It's what we've tried
to do for 20 years. It's the hope that we have that
the Lord will enable us to continue to do that if he's pleased to
bless us with his mercy. Look at verse 2. Our feet shall
stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Upon this rock I'll build my
church. Moses? Come here. I've got a place near
unto me. It's a rock. I'm gonna let you
stand there." And how the Lord finished the Sermon on the Mount?
In Matthew chapter 7 He said, "...if you hear these words and
do them, you're like a man who builds his house upon a rock. And when the winds come, and
the rains fall, and the storm blows, the house will stand."
But if you don't believe the gospel, you're not looking to
Christ, you don't believe what he says, you're like a person
who builds his house upon the sand. And when the house, when
the storms come, and there's storms in life, but there's a
storm coming. There is a storm coming for each
and every one of us. You need a covert in that storm.
You need a hiding place, as the scripture says in Isaiah chapter
32. Because when the wrath of God
blows upon this earth, it'll be like that king returning,
saying to those men who said, we'll not have this man reign
over us. And what's he do? Destroys every one of them. That's
the storm that we need Christ. And that storm That storm of
God's wrath fell on the Lord Jesus Christ when He hung on
Calvary's cross and said, my God, my God, whilst thou forsaken
me, the wrath of God fell on Christ and God was satisfied. So either Christ absorbs the
judgment and wrath of God for you, or you'll suffer yourself
for all eternity. There's no other way. There's
nothing else. No other option. The church, the ecclesia, the
called out ones, the ones who have received the call of God's
grace, this is the place to hear about Christ. This is the place
where your feet can stand And through all the uncertainties
of this world and all the uncertainties of your own flesh, there's a
rock on which you can stand. That rock is Christ. And anyone
standing on Him will not fall. Will not fall. What do you think
about the church? Are all churches the same to
you? The message doesn't really matter, just to feel good experience
for you. What do you think about the church,
the church? That's what David thought about
it. There's so much more in Psalm 122, but we'll take a break and
trust the Lord will bless His word to our hearts. Let's take
a break.