reading is going to be in Hebrews
10. Hebrews 10. For the law having a shadow of
things to come, and not the very image of the things can never
with those sacrifice which they offered year by year continually
made the commerce into perfect. So we see that the law was not
an end of itself. It was pointing to what was to
come. It's not the very image, and can never take away sin.
But it was a picture of what was never making perfect the
comers. For then they would not have
ceased to be offered, because that the worshipers, once purged,
should have no more conscience of sin. If the offering was taking
away sin, then they would have been done with. it would have
been finished, but they had to continue. But in those sacrifices,
there is remembrance again made of sins every year. The sin is
still there. It's remembrance of all the sins. That's a contrast of what's coming.
For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should
take away sins. Wherefore, when he cometh into
the world, he saith, this is the Lord Jesus Christ. Sacrifice
and offering thou would have not, but a body has thou prepared
me." This is the Lord Jesus Christ talking in reference to the father
that he sacrificed. Do not please God. Do not please
his wrath. But that body that God created
for the Lord Jesus Christ, that he was prepared, that body to
replace Adam's body, a sinless body. in burn offerings and sacrifice
sin that has no pleasure. The father is not pleased with
his offerings and sacrifices that were done by sinful men. then said I, Lo, I come, in the
volume of the book it is written on me, to do thy will, O God."
This is the Lord Jesus Christ again speaking, saying that in
the volume of the book, in the Old Testament, it's all about
Christ. It's talking about Christ. It
is written of me, and he came for what? to do his will, to
give us a righteousness that we cannot do of ourselves. Above, when he said, sacrifice
and offering are burnt offerings and offerings for sin that would
have not neither have pleasure therein which are offered by
the law. So God is not pleased by offerings. He's not pleased by these burnt
offerings. Then he said, Lo, I come to do
thy will. He taketh away the first, that
he may establish the second. Again, the Lord Jesus Christ
came to do his will, to provide us with that righteousness that
we desperately need, by which will we are sanctified through
the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. So the Lord Jesus Christ has
given us, has provided us with the sanctification. We are sanctified
through the offering of that body, that sinless body. of the
Lord Jesus Christ, that righteousness that he provides us. And the very priest's daily ministering
offering, oftentimes the same sacrifice, which never take away
sin. The priests were always daily
fulfilling the Lord, doing what they were supposed to do. But
this doesn't take away sin. That was not the end of it. The
end of it was to look to Christ, to point to Christ. But this
man after he hath offered one sacrifice for sins forever."
This is the Lord Jesus Christ offering one sacrifice for our
sins one time and forever, sat down in the right hand of God.
From henceforth expecting these enemies be made his foes by one
offering, just one The Lord Jesus Christ has perfected forever
them that are sanctified. He has done it all. He has provided
salvation. He has perfected us. And this
perfection is not a temporary perfection. He perfected us forever. And we are sanctifying Christ. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is
the witness to us. For after he had said before,
this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,
saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts and into
their minds, and I will write them." This reminds me of Romans
7, 22. Paul says, I delight in the law
of God. Not that he fulfills it, but
he delights in it. But our sins and our iniquities,
I remember no more like we heard in the first message. That's
the blessing right there. That's what we need. We need
for God not to see our sins, not to even remember our sins
or our iniquities. I remember them no more. Now, where there's remission,
there is no more offering for sin. There's no more fulfilling
the law. There's no more trying to offer
God something because there's already the remission of sins.
He does not remember our sins anymore. Let us go to the Father.
Father God, we come before you in the name of Lord Jesus Christ
to thank you for this great privilege that you have given us, the Lord
Jesus Christ. He has provided everything we
need. He has provided our salvation, our sanctification. providers
with the righteousness and repayment of sin. We thank you for that.
Father, we thank you for this church. We ask that you bless
the message here, that Christ may be glorified, magnified,
and likewise all the other churches that are preaching Christ. May
the message be clear, may the Lord Jesus Christ be lifted up,
Father. We thank you that he has done
it all. We ask you that you bring us
to Christ, Father, that we may trust and we may look to Christ
for everything, our salvation, our sanctification, our rest,
Father. May you do this for us, Father. In Jesus' name we pray,
amen. Let's all stand together again.
We'll sing hymn number seven from your soft back tenor, number
seven. ? Draw me right close to your heart
? ? Draw me, my Savior, so precious to me ? ? Pull me, Lord, pull
me close to your heart ? Shelter me safe. Scent me the scent in thy blood,
love, and heart. Scent me the scent. Give me but Jesus, my Lord, crucified. Give me but Jesus, my Lord, crucified. Mirror to mirror, Lord, what
shall I ? To seek the Lord, my anchor was
found ? ? Through endless ages, ever to be near my Savior still
now ? Thank you, Brie. That hymn goes
so perfectly with what I was hoping to preach from this morning.
Growth in Grace. Peter concludes his second epistle
with these words in the last verse of chapter 3 of 2 Peter. He says, but growing grace and
in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what it
means to be nearer to Him. For those of you who weren't
here the first hour, I need to repeat these announcements. Wednesday,
this coming Wednesday night, we'll meet at 5 o'clock, Christmas
Eve. I'm hoping to bring a message
from that passage in Exodus that we looked at the first hour,
the blue and the purple and the scarlet veil. the nature of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And tonight, Donnie Bell and
I will be preaching over in Sarasota. If you want to go, please let
me know. And then on January the 8th, 9th, and 10th, we're
going to have a conference in Sarasota, and Don Fortner and
I will be preaching at that conference on January 8th, 9th, and 10th.
So, I'd love to have you come, and if you can't come, please
remember to ask the Lord to bless that meeting. Alright, let's
pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we pray
that You would send Your Holy Spirit in power and draw us,
Lord, closer to Thee. For we ask it in Christ's name,
Amen. You go read from Hebrews chapter
10 during the scripture reading. I appreciate that so much. About
being sanctified. Completely made holy. In the nature of the new man. The person of the Lord Jesus
Christ that has been given to us. Christ in you. That's your new nature. is your
hope of glory. And as the scripture says, as
he is, as he is, so are we. The only hope that you and I
have of standing in the presence of a holy God is to be made sanctified. To be made perfect. To be made
holy. To be given a new nature. Now, I know in religion men like
to talk about progressive sanctification. Now, here's the problem. I'm going to simplify this matter
of progressive sanctification as much as I can. The problem
with people who talk about progressive sanctification is that their
view of sin has only to do with behavior. They don't understand
the nature of sin. If they think that they're getting
better, the only thing they're doing is considering what they're
doing. And they're not maybe committing
some of the things they used to do and so they believe themselves
to be getting better. Turn with me to that passage
that Hugo just read in Hebrews chapter 10. Verse 10, by the witch will we
are sanctified. We are sanctified. We are made
holy. We are made perfect before God
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Once for all. Now that's what
it means to be sanctified. It's His work of grace that sanctifies
us and makes us perfect so that we are accepted before God in
the Beloved. Once and for all, no more sacrifices
to be made. We're holy. We're perfect. So
what did Peter mean when he talked about growing in grace and in
the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ? If it's not a matter
of getting better, what exactly is growth in grace? Well, the first thing we need
to do is understand the meaning of the word grace. You heard
it said that grace means unmerited favor. It is to be found in favor
with God. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. This matter of grace is a matter
of God accepting us in His presence and it is a gift. That's what the word grace means.
It's unmerited. It's God's favor. The definition of this word grace,
according to the Greek word, the original language, is that
which affords joy, pleasure, or sweetness, that which charms
the heart, that which is lovely, that which is God's will, that
which is His loving kindness. So to be found pleasure in God's presence, to
be found to be in His sweetness, is to be found in His grace. That's the only hope we have.
And to be found in His grace means that we are looking to
the Lord Jesus Christ for all our salvation. He is our Alpha
and Omega. He is the first and the last. He is the beginning and the end. Now I remember when we were in
free will religion, we held tenaciously to the idea of once saved, always
saved. We had our little Jesus as our
Omega. Once you made a decision, you
were in and it was good. But you had to take the first
step. He wasn't the alpha. He wasn't
the cause of our salvation. He was just the one who kept
it going. And then we got a little knowledge and we came into some
understanding of sovereign grace, what we thought was sovereign
grace. And at that point, we came to understand that regeneration,
the new birth, was a work of God completely outside of us.
And so the Lord Jesus Christ became our Omega. We knew that
we couldn't, would not by Him that willeth, nor of Him that
runneth. It was of God that showeth mercy. God has to do a work of
grace. He has to cause us to be born again. But, once He does
that work, then He takes you back to the law, and you measure
your growth by your obedience to the law so that now we had
him as our Alpha but we didn't have him as the Omega. Grace in short is having the
Lord Jesus Christ as your Alpha and your Omega. Your first and
your last and everything in between. The grace of God is seen in Jonah's
statement that he made from the belly of the whale when he said,
salvation is of the Lord. It's all of grace. All of grace. It's all of God. We don't mix
grace and works. If it is of grace, it can no
longer be of works, otherwise grace is not grace. You can't
mix grace and works. If salvation is of God, growing
in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ means
that you grow more in your understanding and your appreciation of the
fact that all your salvation is of God. He's the one who foreknew
you. He's the one who placed His love
on you according to His own good pleasure and will in the covenant
of grace before the world began. I've loved you with an everlasting
love. He chose a particular people
according to His own purpose. He predestinated them to be made
in the image of His own dear Son. It's His work. We don't
have anything to do with that. Before the world was created,
before Adam was formed from the dust of the earth, God established
this covenant. That's grace. That's just grace. You make no contribution to that
in redemption. We played no part in the sacrifice
that the Lord Jesus Christ made on Calvary's cross in order to
purchase those whom God chose in the covenant of grace and
make them acceptable before God. We played no part in that. We
play no part in making God's elect holy. We play no part in
putting away their sin. We play no part in fulfilling
the demands of God's law. The Lord Jesus Christ did all
of that once and for all, all by himself. That's grace. That's grace. Unmerited favor. No works. No, no contribution. Paul said, when it pleased God
who separated me from my mother's womb to reveal Christ in me. That's grace. That's grace. He said, my conversion
is a pattern for all believers' conversions. What was Saul of
Tarsus doing when the Lord shined the light of the gospel from
heaven and knocked him off his high horse and put him in the
dirt? What was he doing? He was persecuting the church.
He wasn't seeking after Christ. He was doing everything he could
to do damage to the church. He was an enemy of the gospel.
And the Lord arrested him, didn't he? All of grace. No man seeketh after God at any
time. If you've ever been brought to
cry out to God, it's because He first, He first called out
to you. It's of grace. Our calling is
of grace. Of His own will begat He us. What does that mean? Of His own
will begat He us. With the word of truth. To as
many as were ordained to eternal life believed. I was talking
to a man one time, I've shared this with you all before, but
I was talking to a man one Sunday afternoon, and I brought up that
verse to as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. And
he said, he said, interesting, you should bring that verse up.
He said, I'm a Sunday school teacher in my church. And we
looked at that verse this morning and we discussed it for an hour
and we never could understand what it meant. I'm sad to say that he died not
understanding what that verse meant. It means what it says. To as many as God ordained to
eternal life, they believed. They believed. God gave them
faith to believe. It's grace. It's grace. Growing in grace means that you
come to know more and more of how your salvation is God's work. It's God's work. Keeping you
in the faith and presenting you faultless before the throne of
God with great joy, our sanctification and our glorification. It's all
of God. It's all of grace. Grow in grace. Grow in grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Being justified before God? How
are we going to be justified before God? Only if the one who
is just in himself presents himself before God on our behalf. That's
the only way we're going to be justified. We have to have an
advocate with God to justify us. John said, I write these
things unto you that you sin not, but if any man sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. It's all of grace. Our righteousness
before God is all of grace. It's His work. It's not our work. To grow in grace doesn't mean
that you're getting better. It means that you come to understand
and to believe more fully that all of your salvation is of God. that you didn't put a finger
to it. It's the reason why we have to
keep hearing the gospel, isn't it? Because we're so prone, we
are so prone to look at works. We're so, it's just in our DNA,
it's in our nature, it's in our old man. We spend our whole lives
in this world as recovering Pharisees trying to find something in us
to give us hope of salvation. And we have to keep hearing the
gospel of God's free and sovereign grace through the accomplished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ to remind us that it's all of
grace. It's all of grace. Growing in
grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is hearing
the gospel afresh and anew. I love it. I love to hear the gospel
and just have the Lord minister grace to my heart in such a way
as I feel like, you know, I don't know if I was ever saved before,
but I am now. And that's just the way it is.
That's what growing in grace is. You're not looking back to
an experience. You're not looking back to some
feeling that you had, or some baptism, or some church membership,
or some whatever. You hear the gospel, the living
Word of God, afresh and anew. And it's like one brother I heard
say recently, he said, and I know what he meant by this, he said,
he said, whew, he said, I got saved again tonight. God saved
again tonight. That's how it feels, isn't it?
That's how it feels. Oh, when the Lord grows us in
His grace and makes His grace real to us, our salvation is
fresh and alive and new so that we don't have to look back to
any previous experiences. We don't try to keep manna from
yesterday. That's what happened to the manna
that the Israelites, when they didn't believe God would provide
manna again tomorrow, they gathered up enough to last them a few
days in fear that maybe God wasn't going to be faithful to keep
his promises. And so the next morning when
they went back to that manna that they had collected up, it
was full of worms. It was rotting. And the Lord
is just saying to us, don't live off of yesterday's grace. Grow
in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Give us, Lord, this day our daily
bread. I need it right now. I need your
grace right now. You must have grace before you
can grow in grace. The seed of faith must be planted
by God in the heart before it can grow. For by grace are you
saved through faith. and that not of yourselves. It's
a gift of God, not of our works. Not of our works, lest any man
should boast. God has to do a work of grace
in our hearts, bringing us to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
relying upon the Lord Jesus Christ for all our righteousness. Before
we can grow in grace, we have to be found in grace. Don't confuse coming to the doctrines
of grace as being in grace. Coming to believe in the doctrines
of grace will no more save your soul than memorizing the Ten
Commandments will make you a sinner. I hear Calvinists all the time
say, well, you know, when did you come to the doctrines of
grace? Doctrines of grace don't save. And I fear that there are
some who think, well, I've come to understand the new doctrine.
I've got this thing about God's sovereignty down, and I know,
no, it's coming to Christ. It's coming to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Notice Peter says, grow in grace
and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. What did the Lord
say in John chapter 17? He said, herein is life eternal. Here's life eternal, you wanna
know what it is? That they might know thee, the only true God
and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. Do you know? that there is a
God who is absolutely holy and will not be satisfied with anything
less than the righteousness of the one that he sent on his behalf
to save his people. Do you believe that? Do you believe
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? That He is the fullness
of the Godhead bodily and that the only hope that you have of
being complete is to be in Him. To be found in Him. Not having
your own righteousness which is of the Law, but that righteousness
which is by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. That's what
it means. to grow in grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't separate the two. You
cannot separate the two. Paul said, I know whom I have
believed. He didn't say, I know what I
believe. He said, I know whom I believed. And I'm persuaded. I am absolutely persuaded. Persuaded what? That I believe?
Persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. I'm trusting Him. I've got all
my eggs in one basket. I'm not diversifying my assets
and making bets here and there in hopes that I'll get into glory.
All my hope is in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only hope I've got.
Only hope I've got. And I'm persuaded that He's able.
That He's able. He's the eternal Son of God.
He is the Savior of sinners. He's all my righteousness before
God. All my righteousness. Growing in grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ, means that you're not getting better, but
in truth, in truth, you're getting worse. You're getting worse. Paul put it like this in Romans
chapter 5, he said, where sin abounds, Grace does much more abound. And we're talking about growing
in grace. That's what he's talking about. Grace abounding. If you
want to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ, it will mean that you're going to get worse. You say,
well, I've heard people say, well, we just see ourselves as
worse, but we're really not. Let me illustrate it like this.
When a tree grows toward the heavens, do not the roots grow
further and further into the darkened soil? Is it that those roots seem to
be getting bigger? No. See, the people who talk
about progressive sanctification, they've not really been made
to be a sinner. If you grow in grace and in the
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, the sweetness of the Lord Jesus
Christ will come in direct proportion to the bitterness of your own
sin. The prophet said, I took the
word of God and it was sweet to my taste and I ate it and
it was bitter to my belly. Now the belly is a picture of
the flesh. You can't grow in grace without becoming a bigger
sinner than you already are. And the more you grow in grace
and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, the more dependent
you're going to become upon Him. Now don't interpret sin just
as behavioral problems. That's not what we're talking
about. Those who think they're getting better are just measuring
their outward behavior. They're whitewashing the outside
of the tomb. They're cleaning up the outside
of the cup. But they don't understand that the inside is full of dead
men's bones. It's full of corruption. David
said, wash me throughly of my sin, for my sin is ever before
me. It's ever before me. Paul said,
to wills present with me, but how to perform that which is
good I find not, for in me, that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good
thing. The more you grow in grace and
in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, the bigger sinner
you're going to become. I don't know any other way to put
that. where sin abounds, grace does
much more abound. There's no abounding of grace
without the abounding of sin. You can't have one without the
other. You won't grow in grace without growing in grace. The
tree won't grow any higher than the roots grow down. It's just
the way it's going to be. Your hope in Christ will come
with total despair in yourself. And it'll be in proportion. We
are the true circumcision which worship God in the Spirit and
have no confidence in the flesh. No confidence. Lord, I'm not
able. I'm not able. With man it is
impossible, but with God it's possible. Your faith in Christ will come
in proportion to your distrust of yourself. The power of the
Lord Jesus Christ will grow in your heart in direct proportion
to the total inability of yourself. The righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ will be seen in direct proportion to all your
righteousness being as filthy rags. You have to be made a sinner. I mean a real sinner. And a real sinner goes, sin is
so much deeper than the things we do. It's so much deeper than that. That's just the overflow. That's
all that is. Our behavioral problems, that's
just the overflow. The sin problem goes right down
to the heart of the matter. And here's our hope. This is
a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners. And in Romans chapter 5 the scripture
says, and many were made sinners. Now everybody comes into this
world with a conscience. We all have a conscience. And,
you know, you violate your conscience enough and you can sear it with
a hot iron into where you convince yourself that, you know, that
that which is good is evil and that which is evil is good and
God turned you over to reprobate mine. But we come into this world
with a conscience and people feel guilty when they do wrong
things. That's not what it is to be convicted of sin. To be convicted of sin is when
God shows you that everything about you is sinful. And the
more you grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ, the
more of that evil, wickedness you see of yourself. You can't
have one... I started the title of this message,
Do You Really Want to Grow in Grace? Do you really want to grow in
grace? Because if you do, it's going
to be associated with total despair over self. Total despair. And the Lord's going to bring
things into your life in order to expose your inabilities and
your weaknesses in order to cause you to find all your hope in
Him. To grow in grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ is to esteem God highly. I was listening to a psychologist
the other day on TV and he was talking about self-esteem I get
so sick of this subject of self-esteem and and he said he said you can
not here's what he said he said you can not praise children enough
you cannot praise them enough this is a psychologist telling
us how to raise our kids If you want to raise arrogant, self-absorbed
narcissists, then yeah, you praise them for everything they do and
that's what they'll grow up to be. That's what they'll grow
up to be. Do children need to be... Here's
the thing, children need the same thing we need, adults need.
They need to be taught to fear God. They need to be taught to
respect authority. They need to be taught to show
concern and interest and compassion and empathy towards other people. They need to be taught those
things. And if they learn those things, then they'll have a healthy
view of life. But to just praise them indiscriminately
and to help them to build a self-esteem, to grow in grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ is to loathe yourself. Now there's something that's
going to set the psychiatrist back on their heels, isn't it?
It's to loathe yourself. It's to know that everything
about you is sinful. It's to know that only in Christ,
to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, is
to esteem Christ. It's to esteem Christ. Your soft back tendrils are there
in front of you. stapled on the inside cover is
a hymn that has blessed my soul. I want us to close the service
this morning by singing this hymn together. It's entitled,
I Asked the Lord That I Might Grow. You have it? I ask the Lord that I might grow
In faith and love and every grace, Might more of His salvation know,
And seek more earnestly His face. T'was He who taught me thus to
pray, And He, I trust, has answered prayer. But it has been in such
a way As almost drove me to despair. I hoped that in some favored
hour At once he'd answered my request, And by his love's constraining
power Subdue my sin. and give me rest. Instead of
this he made me feel the hidden evils of my heart and let the
angry powers of hell assault my soul on every part. Yea, more with his own hand he
seemed, Intent to aggravate my woe, Crossed all the fair designs
I schemed, Blasted my gourds and laid me low. Lord, why is
this, I trembling cried, Will thou pursue thy worm to death? "'Tis in this way,' the Lord
replied, "'I answer prayer for grace and faith.'" These inward
trials I employ from self and pride to set thee free and break
thy schemes of earthly joy that thou might find thy all in me. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful.
for your work of grace in saving us and sanctifying us. We pray,
Lord, that you would increase our faith and enable us to believe
that you are working all things together for good for those who
love Thee and those that are the called according to Thy purpose.
For we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. You're dismissed.