Oh this is ? Christ is born in my heart ?
? Please surrender all of me ? ? Please surrender all of me
? ? All to me, my blessed Savior ? ? Please surrender all of me
? To death Christ is surrendering
And death upon a cross All to save the worst offender mind
The game is all a loss I Jesus Oh Oh I'll try to yell louder than
last night. Evidently my voice, as I told
you, was a little weak and maybe it didn't come through so clearly.
I'll see if I can't improve upon that. It does feel a little bit
better this morning. Would you open your Bibles to
Romans chapter 3? And Todd, you did confirm what
I've known all along, that as a child I was better than you. I found my Bible from childhood,
and it had the Ten Commandments listed in the back, and I checked
off nine of them that I had kept. You only got seven, I got nine. Now, we're going to be looking
at more scriptures than this, but this will be where the main
part of the message comes from. If you've got one of those little
ribbons in your Bible, put it in there. Otherwise, figure out
someplace else to hold your place because we're going to start
in Hebrews chapter 9. Now, the older I get, and that
is the only direction we get to go, is older. People say, I remember something
from my past. I said, well, where else are
you going to remember it from? You know, this only goes one
direction. But the older I get, the more I like home. I love
going places, but I'm not somewhere else too long before I want to
go back home. And I flew in here Thursday,
and the Lord willing, this coming Thursday, I'll fly back to Iowa.
And we're going to enjoy our time here. But I will be glad
to get on that plane, and this may seem an utter mystery to
you from Florida, but get on a jet and go back to those cold
regions of Iowa. and go in my house and find my
recliner and sit down. I have fallen in love with my
recliner. We love home. We love that place. And this is how I perceive home.
We love that place where the door is always open, where there's
always a welcome, where we more or less know how to act. And
those with whom we must live, we pretty well learned what we
can get away with around them. And they've learned they pretty
much have to put up with us anyway. We like home. This is true in
spiritual things for me. I cannot tell you with any certainty
when it was that God opened my eyes to the truth. And the reason
for this is quite simple. There are many times when it
seems like I have seen the truth more clearly than I ever did
before. Which one of those times it was, I don't know. And quite
frankly, I don't care. It's an irrelevant point, but
in all the years that I have known the truth and have sought
to find it in different ways in different places in the scriptures.
I find this, that the very first understanding I had of the gospel
is the most restful, most familiar, most enjoyable way for me to
look at it even today. My first rest is still my best
rest. This is home to me. What I'm
going to preach to you this morning is my spiritual home. Sometimes
I look at things in scriptures and I think I see something.
And I may hold on to it for a while and then realize, well, maybe
it's not quite so important or as clear as you thought it was,
nor nearly as momentous. And I love to just run back to
what I know of a certainty to be the truth of God. For there where there is no uncertainty,
there is peace of mind and peace of heart. In Romans 9, verse
27, we read this last night, we'll look at it again. I said Romans, I'm sorry, Hebrews
9, verse 27. At home, people know what I mean
no matter what I say. That's another nice thing about
home. I've got to be clear with you guys. Hebrews chapter 9 verse 27, and
as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. Now virtually all religious activity
in this world is based upon a single principle, a principle found
in scriptures, but more importantly, or at least more powerfully,
it is found in the human conscience. It is part and parcel of what
Paul calls the law written on the heart. And it is what we
just read. It's appointed unto man once
to die, and after this, face judgment. We all know that we're
going to die. We may not know when, but we
do know that we're going to die. We may try to keep that thought
out of our minds, but it will not change the fact that we're
going to die. It's remarkable how much effort
we spend trying not to think about that, which is absolutely
certain. I remember a preacher friend
of ours, Bob Coffey, made this remark. He says, men will spend
a tremendous amount of effort to provide for a retirement that
they have no assurance that they shall ever reach. but will hardly
give a moment's notice to a destiny which they are sure to reach.
It's appointed unto man once to die. Now, as I said, I don't
know when that is for me or for anybody here, but I'm certain
of this, before 2116 rolls around, we're all going to be gone. There
may be some infants in this building who have a particularly long
life. And maybe they'll stretch her
out a little past 100 years. But if you're hearing my words
and understanding what I mean, 100 years from now, you're not
going to be on the earth. And you say, well, 100 years
is a long time. Well, it's long compared to how
long we normally live. But you know, it wouldn't matter
if it was nearly a thousand like it was with Adam and some of
the other fellas. It still ends like this, and
he died. Did you ever read that genealogy? And he lived so many years and
he died. And it doesn't matter what the
number is there. It still ends with, and he died.
We all know we're going to die. We also have a gut level understanding
that after we die, we must give an account to God for our lives. We must face judgment. You see,
we understand by instinct. I say instinct, again, it's what
God reveals to me. We know there's a God and we
have a kind of an instinct that God has an idea, an opinion about
how we ought to live and he's going to hold us to account for
it and make us give an account for the things that we have done. And we instinctively believe
that the blessedness of our eternal existence will be determined
by how that judgment turns out. The idea of everlasting existence
of one form or another seems to be written on the heart of
man. We realize there was a time when we did not exist. But we
came into existence and we have this idea that we're not going
to go back out of existence. And we realize that seeing that
our existence here as we're now experiencing it, experiencing
it is a limited thing. There must be another kind of
existence going on later. And we kind of believe that how
we do here determines how we will be later on. I'm trying
to keep it very basic here. These are just gut level instincts
in the human mind. And yet we find that they have
some support out of the scriptures. We're going to die, we're going
to face God in judgment, and the blessedness or cursedness
of our eternal existence is going to be determined by how that
judgment comes out. And then we have one more instinctive
thought. We have this abiding fear that
in the judgment it's not going to go well. Really? Do you know how much
of our lives are ruled by that gut level understanding, the
fear that pervades humanity over that gut level understanding? I'm going to die. I'm going to
face God. I'm going to be judged and it's
not going to come out well. And it takes a great deal of
effort and self deception. before people can ever arrive
at a peaceable feeling about how things shall be. Now, there
are some who've managed to erase some of this divine testimony
from their hearts. There are some who've managed
to erase the very existence of God. They declare themselves to be
atheists, and I realize most of them are phonies. They're
not any more atheists than most Christians are Christians. But,
um, but nonetheless, there are some who have actually convinced
themselves there is no God. There are those who have convinced
themselves or seem to be able to hold this or keep it out of
their mind that they're going to die. Spurgeon told the story
about. an old man in his congregation,
and they were having a discussion, and this fellow was 95, and he
was talking about his neighbor who was 85, and he wanted to
buy his neighbor's property. His neighbor wouldn't sell. And he told Spurgeon, he said,
but one day, that old guy's going to die, then I'll buy it. We operate, but that's it. Everybody else
is going to die. Oh yeah, someday I'll die, but
not today. And we keep saying that we erase from our mind,
the idea that we'll have to face God. We erase it, uh, through
all manner of religious foolishness. That simply comes out to deny
that the judgment shall come or that when it comes, it'll
be according to justice. They invent a God or alter their
view of God such that he's really little more or maybe nothing
more than a grandfatherly character who dotes upon his grandchildren
and will pretty much put up with anything they have done, just
come on home. Or they throw away the idea of
divine punishment. The idea that anyone would ever
say something is wrong and deserves to be punished is pretty much,
that's just been thrown out of our culture, hadn't it? You're
not even allowed to say that there's something wrong without
somebody saying you're wrong for saying it. It's remarkable
how inconsistent they are. They are absolutely tolerant
of anything except you being intolerant of something. That's
the only thing they're intolerant about. is intolerance. Some people have been able to
do that but nearly everyone throughout their lives has an inborn sense
of guilt before God and that's why we fear death and that's
why we live in bondage. It says concerning the Lord Jesus
Christ Among the things that will be accomplished by his work
was that he will deliver men who through the fear of death
were all their lives subject to bondage. It has been rightly
said, even by people who weren't even thinking in terms of religion
or anything, he said, most dangerous man in all the worlds, man's
not afraid to die. I suppose that's one reason they
feared the believers. In the early days, here were
people that you could not hold in bondage by the fear of death. Here was people you would beat
them, which was merely a preamble to killing them, and they would
go away rejoicing that they had been counted worthy to suffer
for the name. And you'd threaten them with
death, and they would say, well, I desire to depart and be with
Christ. Let's bring it on. And what are
we going to do with these people? They're out of control. They're
not in bondage. But of course, something much
deeper is meant when it says that Christ delivers us from
that bondage that comes by the fear of death, that bondage of
religion. Imagine how people would live
or whether or not they'd bother being religious if you could
convince them that their religion was not making any difference
whatever. in the outcome of their eternal existence. Virtually
all religion going on in the world today is mercenary religion.
It's an attempt to purchase something. They don't like it, they don't
want it, but it seems to be the way to get a ticket into a heaven
made of golden streets, colonnaded mansions, And I suppose if the
scriptures had been written in our day, a nice car or two or
three or whatever. That's how they perceive heaven.
Religion's the way they get in. All religions are an effort to
make this judgment go well. That's why they're doing it.
And I'll say this, that's part of why we're involved in what
we're doing. We're concerned about that judgment.
So, well, I'm not, well, you're, you're a fool. If you're not,
this is serious business. There is a reason that we find
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to be such a wonderful
thing. And most of it centers around
this concept of the judgment. All religious activity is an
attempt to make us appear righteous in the sight of God. Because
we have that gut level understanding, if I don't appear righteous to
Him, I'm done, I'm ruined. Some try to do this by mitigating
their sin. Excuse me, mitigating their sin.
And by the way, you can be turning back to Romans chapter three. They try to do it by mitigating
their sin. What I mean by mitigate it, make
it less than it is. Act like it was really no big
thing. You want me to show you how the small sins a big thing?
Roll back with me however long it takes to get back to the Garden
of Eden before the fall. God said, don't eat of that tree.
I don't know what kind of tree it was, but let's just go with
apple because that's what everybody says. Eve ate an apple and gave
her husband a bite of it. And for that, God put the entire
human race under condemnation. Eating the wrong piece of fruit. You say, well, yeah, but in that
was all this rebellion. That's the point. The outward
form of the sin is insignificant. The relative seriousness of the
sin, as we view sin, is irrelevant. Within every sin is the essential
sin of rebellion against God. And God does not tolerate rebellion,
not the least of it. No matter what form it takes. They try to mitigate their sin.
They rely on religious ceremonies to make up for sin. Yes, I've
sinned, but I can go down to the church and they'll give me
a little thimble full of wine and a little cracker, and I can
have that. And if it doesn't get rid of
all the sin, it'll at least, you know, like I remember when
you had to erase pencil. Well, it erased it well enough
you could write over it, but the smudge was always there. But most people
are fine if their sin is merely smudged, you know, to where you
can't tell what it was. They think it's enough. All the darkness of the human
heart revealed in the foolishness of the things they think will
put away sin. Get baptized. Wash away your
sins. And while nearly all Protestant
churches will say that there's only two sacraments, well, there's
only two things they'll admit. Actually not sacraments or ceremonies
or ordinances, but whatever. They invent others, they just
won't give them that name. They invent others like Bible
reading and prayers. And church attendance, they make
a sacrament out of church attendance. And the way they do this is they'll
brag on people who attend more than other people. Well, friends,
I don't want to take away from the need, the seriousness of
faithfully attending on the preach word, but understand this, you're
not earning points. God's not taking attendance. You know how churches used to
have those things up on the wall to tell you how many attended?
And many churches, the one I was raised in, included. They took
attendance about who was there, and the record was kept of it,
and if you could attend a full quarter without missing, you
got a pin. A three-month attendance pin,
then a six, then a nine. And then if you got a whole year,
there was a real pretty pin. It was nicer than the little,
you know, like political pins, cheap political pins. And you
keep going and you can get little bars put on the bottom of those.
I remember one girl had one that cleared down to here, you know,
that hanging little thing. And we laugh about it. They were
trusting in it. They probably wouldn't admit
it, but why were they so proud of it? Be certain of this, what
men are proud of before other men, they'll try to be proud
of it in the sight of God. Even if it's not something more
than, well, I never killed anybody. Well, you found their righteousness,
they're not a murderer. And they think that merits them
an entrance into glory. Some try morality. I kind of
get tickled at those that want us to, I say tickled, I don't
know if that's the right word, but those who want us to use
the Ten Commandments as a rule and guide for the Christian life.
The thing is, by the time they're done redefining them, who couldn't
keep them? Now, I remember a professor I had
in college. And he was teaching that the
law is the rule and guide for Christian living. It is the transcript
of God's holiness. But then he would always say,
well, the spiritual principles behind them. I don't remember God saying,
cursed is everyone that does not keep the spiritual principles
behind the laws that I've given you. People, whether they call it
the Ten Commandments or some church covenant or some church
code of conduct, whatever it is, it's some kind of morality
thing and it will be adjusted so that men are able to keep
it. And by keeping it, they somehow
or another think that everything they did before they started
keeping it will be forgotten based upon the fact they started
keeping it. And if you want to see how silly
that is, go about six months without making your automobile
payment. And when they call you about
it and come to pick up your car, you say, okay, that was wrong.
I shouldn't have done that. Next month, I will start making
my payments. And I will make them, you know,
until January 1st, like the contract said. Well, that ain't going
to work. There's six months never been
paid. You write a check for them right now and we'll put you on
probation again and see if you keep up. You can't start. performing, even if you could
do righteousness, even if you could from this moment on do
absolutely everything God requires, you still would be lost because
you can't do anything about all those years before. And we're
not even getting into the more theological concepts of original
sin and imputed sin and all that. I'm just talking about what you've
already done. You can't fix it, but people think they can. They
will offer sacrifices. Now, we don't offer sacrifices
of living animals, at least not in this country and in our culture,
but we give up stuff. When I was living in Owensboro,
Kentucky, and I worked for Orkin for a little while, and that
area is heavily Catholic. I was not that familiar with
Catholic religion. And I came up to someone's house,
knocked on the door. You know, they were one of our
accounts. And a woman comes to the door, and she's got this
smudge in the middle of her head. I came this close saying, you
realize you've got a smudge or something? You might want to
clean that off. I didn't realize it was Ash Wednesday.
And if I had, I didn't even know what Ash Wednesday was about.
I hadn't learned about it. But that is the beginning of Lent
in which they give up something and hope by this sacrifice to
gain a little grace, what they call grace, a little more that
puts away the sin so they can spend less time in purgatory
because some of the sins will have already been purged by giving
up pizza for however many weeks that is. You say, that is so
foolish. It is no more foolish than what
we were doing before the Lord God saved us. Every one of these methods is
an attempt to produce a righteousness toward God. It is us like little
children waving our hands, see, I did well, I did it good. Trying to get God's attention.
Trying to please God. Trying to earn our way into a
good result for that judgment. But there's a fatal flaw in all
of this. In Romans chapter one. I'm sorry. It's Romans chapter 3 where I
told you earlier. Verse 10, my wife laughs because she understands. Verse 10, there is none righteous,
no not one. The brother and I were talking
the other night and we mentioned we like the fact that the gospel
is black and white. We live in a gray world. Truly, we do. Never is this more
clearly seen that we've got to go and vote for someone. Because
there is nobody pure and there's nobody utterly evil. Some seem
to come pretty close, but to the utterly evil part of it.
But we never can pull the lever for someone we say, okay, I agree
with everything. We're always choosing the lesser
of evils. The gospel's the only thing that
lays stuff out with absolute clarity. And it's full of words
like none and all. All in or all out. And it says
there's none righteous. Well, but none. But I, none. But I gave, none. You want that sign? I remember it
was a parent talking to a child and says, just what part of no
don't you understand? And I want to say to this world,
even to my own mind, just what part of none don't you understand? And it's not even a nun about
them. He says verse nine, what then are
we better than they? No in no wise for we have before
proved that both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin as
it is written, there is none righteous. Now, I think it's always important
as a preacher to bring this home to us. I don't wanna preach about
them. They're not here. Isn't that
so? We're here. Let me tell you,
none of you righteous. Nobody out there, nobody up here. You say, but don't... We're Calvinists,
none. Well, we're not just Calvinists,
we're Sovereign Grace Baptists. None. None righteous. And because the apostle, no,
the Spirit of God understood that we're not just going to
accept none. No, not one. I love the clarity of gospel
truth. There's none righteous, no not
one. Now, wisdom always abandons a
path that cannot work. If there's anything that does
frustrate us about our politicians, it's not only this, that they
will institute programs that even before they instituted them,
they were patently foolish. But once they try them and they
don't work, they won't quit. So we got to tweak it. We got
to do this. And none of them is touching the fatal flaw in
it. If the only way that I can have
a blessed outcome to the judgment is for me to be righteous, and
the Bible says there's none righteous, There's no use me pursuing a
course wherein I try to produce my own righteousness. I mean, that doesn't take a seminary
degree to figure that out. The children, I'm not sure do
I see any children. I don't know. Anyway, children
can figure that out. If you tell them the fact the
Bible says there's none righteous, but you cannot, there's none
that do righteousness, that act righteous, that in themselves
are righteous. There's none like that. But the only people who
are going to be blessed eternally are the righteous. Right then
they would immediately understand we've got a serious problem on
our hands and a problem that we can't fix. A problem we can't do anything
about. Every scheme of salvation based
on us producing a righteousness is absolutely doomed to failure. It cannot work on the simple
premise that we cannot work righteousness. Not simply that we will not or
do not, it's that we cannot. We must ask ourselves this, as
you're sitting here this morning, do you want to know whether you're
on the broad road that leads to destruction or the narrow
road that leads to eternal life? Ask yourself the question, am
I trying to be good enough for God? If you're trying to be good
enough for God, you are on the broad road that leads to destruction. Most people think the straight
and narrow is the road of a very restrictive lifestyle. That the
straight and narrow path is the road of me being good enough
for God. The straight and narrow path
is the path that begins with an admission, there's nothing
I can do. that's good enough for God. The broad road is that
way that seems right to a man but ends in death and it seems
right to him because it's laying before him a method by which
he may make himself approved to God. But we know it's got to be wrong
because the Bible said nobody can live well enough that God
will approve of him. There's none righteous. But thankfully,
there is some good news. Everything we've said up to now
is pretty much bad news. I can't have a pleasurable, blessed
eternity unless I'm righteous, and it's absolutely impossible
for me to be righteous. That's bad news. But there is
good news. And this is in Romans chapter
one. If you want to look back there, verse 15, for I am not ashamed, verse 15,
so as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to
you that are at Rome also, for I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. For it is the power of God and
the salvation to everyone that believes, to the Jew first and
also to the Greek, that is the Gentile. I like this, Paul says,
I'm ready to preach the gospel to you in Rome. He realized he had some, limitations. God might not let him ever go
to Rome. But he says, I'm ready. He says, if I don't ever preach
the gospel to you, it won't be because I'm ashamed of it. Because
I'm not ashamed of it. There are many people who are
ashamed of it. They claim to believe it. They
say, yes, I believe in free and sovereign grace. I believe in
all these things. But I know they're ashamed of
it. Why? Because that's not what they
preach. They're not ready to preach it everywhere. They may
preach it in their home church where they've been able to get
away with it. Or maybe they don't preach it there, but when they
go out doing conference preaching or something, they'll preach
it there because the folks back home will never find out about
it and they won't have to answer to them for it. Paul says, I
don't care where I am. I don't care who I'm standing
in front of them. I am ready to preach the gospel
because I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not ashamed of it in front
of the most, if they put me in front of Caesar, that's what
I'm going to preach. If they bring me to a synagogue, I'm
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ in a synagogue, even though
those Jews think they got rid of the man I'm trusting in. I'm
not ashamed to preach of it. Preach this gospel on Mars Hill,
full of those philosophers, so full of their own wisdom and
so full of themselves that they will mock what I say. He said,
but I'm still not ashamed of it. Why? It's the power of God
and salvation. And I know it. It saved me. I'll tell you, if you won't tell
the gospel, it's because you're ashamed of it. And I think it would be at least
a good generalization, if not an absolute principle. If you're ashamed
of it, it's because it's never been the power of God under your
salvation. Now, why is it the power of God
unto salvation? Verse 17 of Romans 1, For therein
is the righteousness of God revealed. From faith to faith as it is
written, the just shall live by faith. This is a very excellent translation
here of this verse. But it can be broadly interpreted,
and this is what it means, what I believe it means. For in the
gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed. You see, in every other form
of religion, we are rendering a righteousness to God. The gospel
is the only religion in which we receive a righteousness from
God. Now the phrase, the righteousness
of God, it can be speaking of God's essential righteousness. It can also be, uh, as it is
a little bit later, it can be talking about his justice in
the way he brings to pass the gospel. But here, Paul is contrasting. The gospel with all the rest
of the world's religion in this, in the gospel, a righteousness
from God is revealed. Now, ask yourself this question
and you should be able to answer it. Are you trying to produce
a righteousness or are you simply receiving one? Therein proves faith. Therein you know whether or not
you believe. Are you trying to establish your
own righteousness or are you simply receiving a righteousness
from God declared by Him with the hope that in time to come
that righteousness declared will be fully experienced as we are
transformed into the likeness of Christ. You see the gospel Every bit
as much of the law is wrapped up in righteousness. It's addressing
the very same issues the law is addressing. It's just finding the required
righteousness in a different source. That's all. The law required righteousness,
so does the gospel. But the law required that you
produce the righteousness. The gospel says, here, receive
one. Now, four points, I think it is, or
five, and we can make them quickly. This gospel, which means good
news, good message. Good news of Jesus Christ. It
is good news because it puts all people in the same category. Look at Romans chapter 3, verse
22. Even the righteousness of God,
which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that
believe, for there is no difference. Now the difference that he had
in mind at this point was that great distinction between Jew
and Gentile as revealed in the law. The law made a difference
between Jew and Gentile. The gospel obliterates that difference. For in Christ, there is neither
Jew nor Gentile. But here's the point that Paul
is making. He's saying that this righteousness of God, which is
by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that
believe, whether they're Jew or Gentile, whether they're bond
or free, male or female, young or old, sophisticated or barbarian,
it's upon all of them who believe. Why? Because there's no difference
in them. We're busy trying to make a difference. And all the while the gospel
saying there isn't a difference. You say, well, we're not like
those print. We're not like those Muslims who go around slaughtering
and butchering. Yes, we are. I'm not trying to act like we
should ignore them, that the Lord ordained governments to
handle things like that. But brethren, as we preach, don't,
as we listen, as we look into the scriptures, do not raise
yourself one inch higher than anybody else you see. We've got
things going on in our culture, which rightly vex our souls,
just as it did Lot. But what was the difference between
Lot? And the men in that city, nothing,
nothing. Say, how do you know that? Well,
God's scripture here says there's no difference, but also revealed
in Lot's conduct. God's warned him. God said, get
out of the city. God's saying to him, the angel's
saying to him, We can't, the brimstone can't fall till you
get out of here. And it says that the angel had to take him
by the hand and lead him out. You can just see those two angels.
One grabs Lot, the other grabs Lot's wife, the other one grabs
the two daughters and say, get out of here and runs out. And
I love those next words, the Lord being merciful to him. He
wouldn't leave Sodom either. Neither would we. There is no
difference. Why? Verse 22, 23, for all have
sinned. I like this. It doesn't list
the sins, doesn't categorize them in the order of seriousness.
It just says all have sinned. Have you sinned? I don't know
anybody that will say I've never sinned. I've never met them anyway. I haven't even heard of them.
So everybody here agrees. You've sinned. All right. You're
in the same category then as everybody else. It doesn't matter
what the nature of your sin was, whether it was less destructive
than another man's sin, whether it seems less perverse, whether
your greatest sin is that you cheated on your taxes, which
a lot of people consider a virtue. It doesn't matter. All sin, but you know, there's
something even more fundamental here. The translation says, for
all have sinned, but it's written in a tense that we really don't
even have in English. I mean, we can express it, but
we can't express it with a single word. But it means something
that happened at a point in time, usually in the past. It's the
same word that you find where it says that when Adam sinned,
death passed upon all men for all sinned. Same words being
used here, for all sin. Before you ever came into the
world, you sinned. Before your parents came into
the world, you sinned. Before anybody other than Adam
and Eve came into the world, we all sinned. And therefore,
we were all put into the exact same category as those who are
rebels against God. You say, that's good news. Yes,
it is. Because if there's no difference
among us, I can quit trying to make one. You know, you only work when
you have hope that your work's going to produce something. Give
up, folks. Give up. There's not a chance
in the world. There's not a chance in eternity
that you're going to be anything other than a sinner. So you can
give up on that one. That's good news. The good news
is that we are declared righteous by grace. Verse 24, being justified
in that word means being rendered a verdict of righteous. Being
justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. Now the word translated grace
means favor. And actually I understand it
anyway. In the Greek language, it really
didn't deal with why you have that favor. But the gospel writers took this
word and modified it. And right here shows that being
justified freely as a gift without cause by the grace of God. And
from then on, we understand this grace of the gospel to mean the
favor of God for which we have not qualified, for which we have
not earned. It's something absolutely free
from God. And when I mean free, I don't
mean just free of a price. I mean that God is free when
he does it. You cannot constrain Him to show
you grace, and you cannot restrain Him from showing grace. He does
so for this reason and this reason alone. It's what He wants to
do. And when people are blinded,
when the truth's hidden from them, why? Because that's what
God wanted to do. So our Lord said, I thank you,
Lord, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you've hidden
these things from the wise and prudent. Why? It seemed like
a good idea to you to do it. And if you receive God's grace,
it's going to be for this reason. God wanted it that way. And you know something? That's
good news. Why? Because this grace I've already
learned, I can't earn it. The only way I could ever get
it is if he gave it to me for no other reason than that's what
he wanted to do. I find great comfort in the sovereign
disposition, the sovereign dispensing of God's grace. Chance is the only word I can
use here, but you understand what I mean. If salvation, excuse
me, if grace comes to us by any other means than God's sovereign
dispensing, I don't have a chance. But if it is by God's sovereign
dispensing, with no regard to who I am or what I've done, then
there's a chance from my viewpoint that I might receive it. Thirdly, the gospel is good news
concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, because it is about the work
of God in Christ. Now this dovetails well with
what our brother just preached for us. With man, it's impossible. With God, all things are possible.
Now that which is utterly impossible to us, that we should ever produce
a righteousness for God and thereby be received, God does the impossible. in producing a righteousness
for us. It says in verse 25, whom God
hath set forth to be a propitiation. That's a sacrifice that reconciles,
that puts away wrath, that deals with the offense between us and
God. A propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness. He is justice in the remission
of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God to declare,
I say at this time, his righteousness that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believes in Jesus. What's he saying? God did what we couldn't. That's
what it's saying. That's good news. I can't, but he can. I can't,
but that's not a problem anymore. I'm not being called on to do
it. He's taking it in. He said, he looked and there
was no one. There was no one to do this.
So he may bear his right, his mighty right arm. And what could
not be done by anyone else, he did for himself. For he had determined
to show grace, but as the just God, he can't show grace until
that sin issue is taken care of. And he took care of it in
Jesus Christ. He put away the sins of those
upon whom his grace had been purposed. Grace goes out and
says, I love them, they're mine, they're gonna be with me. Justice
says, no, they're not. Why? Because they've got to be
righteous, but they can't. God says, okay, I'll be righteous
for them. And I will give them that righteousness. And I will
extract my own penalty by my hand against my son in their
place. And I will be just when I show
them grace. I will be just when I show them
mercy. Because they are made righteous
with the righteousness I gave them. I believe it was Scott
Richardson, at least that's the source I heard from. He says,
everything God requires, God provides, and everything God
provides, God accepts. He required righteousness, so
he provided, and then he accepted it on our behalf. And we're just
standing here, wondering why. Fourth, the good news of Jesus
is that his righteousness is received by faith. There is a point in which that
which has been done in heaven that is realized in heaven must
be realized on earth. Remember hearing Henry say, we
can't partake of this principle, this
idea that whatever will be, will be whether it ever happens or
not. No, what will be will happen. And for every one of God's people
on which his grace freely rests. Jesus Christ and Him crucified
is set before them, and they reach out and lay hold of it. It's received by faith. It's
not received by doing. It's not received by any kind
of emotional experience. It's received by trusting. Paul describes this faith under
three words, I know whom I have believed, is to know Christ,
to know Him, what He's done, what He's able to do. I know
whom I have believed and I am persuaded. There's a persuasion
in faith. I'm persuaded that I can't do
anything, but that's not faith. That's just common sense. Faith
is I'm persuaded that He is able. Oh, faith is not the persuasion
of what you can do. Not even the persuasion that
you can believe. It's a persuasion of what Christ can do. And it
involves commitment. And by commitment, I do not mean
that you are committed to a cause. It's like committing money to
the bank. I commit my soul to his care. And you know what? That's simply doing what the
Father has already done. He has put all things into the
Son's hands. The Father said, here's my people.
I love them. Son, go save them. And he did. And the Holy Spirit
of God makes us see the Son like the Father sees the Son. And
we say, oh, here's my soul, Lord. Take care of it. I've made a
mess of it. Fix it. I'll fix it. No, it's
not fixing. It's something much more than
fixing, but you know what I mean. Save it. There you go. Good Bible
word. Save it. Rescue it. And then
lastly, the gospel's good news because it excludes boasting. Verse 27, where is boasting then? It is excluded. You say, why
is it a good news to exclude boasting? We like boasting. Yes,
we do. We like boasting so much that
even those of us who know we shouldn't do it anyway, The gospel
may exclude boasting, but unfortunately it doesn't stop us from doing
it. Say, how do I know? It's very simple. There is something
about you that you take pride in. And if anybody outed you
on it and the fact that you're really not that way, it'd make
you mad. If boasting's been excluded,
you cannot be offended. I mean, if it's been utterly
eliminated in you, you couldn't be offended. If you can be offended,
you haven't stopped boasting. But you know deep within your
heart, if God has saved you, that you won't boast before God.
Or if you find your mouth about to do it, you'll... Or if it
does get all the way out, the next thing you'll say, oh God,
I'm sorry I said that. Forget, wipe it out. But it is excluded
from the process of salvation, the program of salvation. God's
not calling on you to boast about something. God's not calling
you to bring forward your reasons why he should save you. It's
been excluded. And I'm glad God's not saying
to me, okay, what did you do that I ought to give you a nice
house here in my home? It's been excluded. And then
here's the other side of it, brethren. If boasting has been
excluded, so has despairing. If I am not allowed to boast
of what good I have done, I need not despair over what evil I
have done. Why? Because what I have done
has been utterly and completely taken out of the picture. It's
not part of the equation anymore. He says there are sins and iniquities
I will remember no more, which means he forgets everything about
us because sins and iniquities is all there is. He will not bring them up. You
may, because we're still in the flesh right now, you may look
at judgment, you think, oh, but what if he brings up, I can remember
it. I know what I am. Brethren, hold on to the promise. He said he's not going to bring
it up. He will not bring it to remembrance. Trust him on that
issue. The only one remembered at the
judgment of a believer is the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's good enough. He did
produce a righteousness that God accepted. And God accepted
it and then said to his people, here, it's yours. Well, God had
his blessing. Glad you're here, Noah. That
was a blessing, wasn't it? Both those messages. I was just
thinking about that very simple illustration that most of us
have heard. The difference between the gospel
that man has made and the gospel that God's made is a difference
in two letters, N-E. Man-made gospel is D-O. God-made gospel is D-O-N-E. That's the difference. Man, being ignorant of God's
righteousness, goes about to establish his own. Christ is
the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. What
a blessing it's been to be here today. Thank you, Joe and Todd.
We're going to stay together, those of you that can. I think
there's some lunch prepared. We're out in the yard, and so
we'll have a picnic, and I hope that everybody will be able to
stay for that. Lord willing, tomorrow morning, same time,
10 o'clock, and we'll look forward to that. How fast these weekends
go by. Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father, we thank you that we have an
advocate who's seated at thy right hand, one who is in himself
perfectly righteous, pleads the cause and case of his people.
Lord, we pray for the faith to look to him, to rest in him,
to rely upon him, to believe who he is and what he's done. Pleasing in thy sight, for we
ask it in his name. Amen. Let's stand together. Brother Tom's going to come and
lead us in When I See the Blood, number 232. 232, When I See the
Blood. Christ our Redeemer died on the
cross Died for the sinner, paid all his due Sprinkle your souls
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 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 Savior,
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. O great compassion, O boundless
love, O 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, See the blood I will pass I will
pass over you