a baptism service and stay for
lunch after services two weeks from today and uh... it was something else I can't
didn't didn't write it down uh... Cody Cody and Wynn will be here
the last weekend of July in case you missed that uh... Happy Father's Day, man. And your brethren from Pennsylvania
send their regards and their love to you. It was an encouragement
to be there this week and this past weekend, and I'm very hopeful
that the Lord's going to provide for them a pastor and give them
an opportunity for for live preachers to come on a more regular basis
than what they've been doing. So they are looking forward to
that. And Michael and Hugo, thank you,
men, for being so faithful to the gospel last Sunday. Tom, the hymn on the back of
your bulletin. Let's stand together. For our scripture reading this
morning, would you please turn to the book of Genesis. The book
of Genesis chapter 22. It truly is my hope and prayer this
morning that we will see ourselves in this familiar story. And I
hope it will be of comfort to you as it has for me. Isaiah makes mention of it in
Isaiah 43. When he says, But now, thus saith
the Lord, it created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel,
fear not. And Jacob had a lot to fear because
he was about to see Esau with 400 men. For I have redeemed
thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine. Let's read at verse 22. And he rose up that night, and
took his two wives, and his two women servants, and his eleven
sons, and passed over to Fort Jabbok. And he took them, and
sent them over to Brook, and sent them over that he had. And
Jacob was left alone. And there wrestled a man with
him until breaking of day. And when he saw that he prevailed
not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh. And the
hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint. as he wrestled with
him. And he said, Let me go, for the
day breaketh. As he said, I will not let thee
go, except thou bless me. In verse 24, And Jacob was left
alone. And the Lord is pleased to send
that storm, that affliction, our way. He isolates us to Himself. And as Greg mentioned earlier,
I covered your prayers, we covered each other's prayers, we asked
for our pastor to pray us, but pastor can't do anything for
us. He can't. But when the Lord is pleased
to do that, Scripture says, be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the heathen.
I will be exalted in the earth. And when He finally gets us to
be still in verse 26, He puts that desire in our heart to cry
out unto Him, and He creates opportunity, meaning persistence.
He said, keep seeking, keep knocking. For we know that He has promised
that when we ask, whatever we ask for, whatever we seek, He
is pleased to accomplish that. But like you, I grow weary of
seeking and asking and at times just like the disciples at night
and gets them and I fall asleep. And I'm not there vigilant, I'm
not watching, I'm not waiting for his answer. But the Lord
said, that's okay, I got this. And the Lord said, when I allow
importunity to run its course, I will provide a way of escape.
And he does that and look at verse 25. And when he saw that
he prevailed not against him, He touched the hollow of his
thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he
wrestled with him. I have a dear friend in Lexington,
Claire Sharon, and he knows a little something about hip replacements. I don't know if anybody here
has had a hip replacement, but he explains something very interesting
to me. He said that the femur bone has a head, and it forms
in this pocket in the hip joint. It's called the acetabulum. and
it grabs a hole just like this. And when the Lord touched Jacob,
and it went out of joint, surrounding that head is sinews and marrows
and joints and it tears away, which leaves the hip loose and
that head just moving out of that place. Now scripture says
that Jacob, he didn't cry, didn't see any indication that he was
in pain. But the Lord did that with tender mercies. And when
the Lord is pleased to send His Word, the sword of His Spirit,
which is His Word, and makes it effectually by revealing His
Son, Hebrews 4.12 says, for the Word of God is quick and powerful,
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing
a slender soul, and spirit enough to join and marrow. And when
that happens, verse 27, And he said unto him, What is your name?
And he said, Jacob. Greg. Brian. Lord, I'm a sinner. I'm vile and wicked. No one to
do anything for me, Lord, would you forgive me? O wretched man
that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of this death?
And verse 28 speaks to that. This is a glorious passage right
here. And he said, thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but
Israel, prince of God. For as a prince has thou power
with God and with men, and hast prevailed. Only one man can be
said of that. That is the Lord Jesus Christ.
He said, all power has been given unto me. in heaven and in earth
all power has given to me over all flesh and I will give to
all of them eternal life as many as you give to me father that's
what he said and that is our hope he won the victory and as
a result of that look at verse 29 and this is the experience
of every believer and Jacob asked him and said tell me I pray thee
thy name and he said oh wherefore is it that thou ask after my
name and he blessed him there It's our heart's desire to want
to know Him. Oh, we want to hear from Him.
Oh, that we may know Him and the power of His resurrection
and the fellowship of His suffering. We desire to hear, we want to
know Him, to apprehend which that has apprehended us. So where
do we go? Where do we go to get this? Look at verse 30. And Jacob called
the name of that place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face
and my life is preserved." That's what we're doing here right now.
We have come from all walks, Sarasota, New Smyrna Beach. We
want to be here. Why? Because we are wanting so
much for the Lord. Lord, would you reveal your face
to me? And the Lord told Moses, see
my face, no man shall live it. Lord, we want to see thy dear
son. Would you do that? That's why we're here. And when
we leave, why is it that we can't leave? We don't want to leave. I don't want to leave because
he assured us with his word that our life is preserved. He's done
it all. He's done it all. And the final verse, verse 31,
this is so important. As he passed over Penuel, the
sun arose upon him. The Lord turned him. The Lord's
face smiled upon him, saved him. And look at that last part. And
he halted upon his thigh. Jacob will never ever walk the
same again. If a person be in Christ, he
is a new creature, old things pass away. But he has a limp,
and he'll limp all the way to that end. As a reminder, that
be of good cheer when those storms come, and those limps get more
pronounced. The Lord reminds us, I am the
Lord. I change not, therefore you sons of Jacob shall not be
consumed. And I would like to close on
this, and I would like this to be of comfort to me in Jeremiah
29.11. Jeremiah 29.11, this is one of
those glorious passages, and I hope this will be of comfort
to you. The Lord says, For I know the
thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts
of peace and not of evil. You mean these afflictions, these
storms? Yes. Why? Because the cure is
the Prince of Peace. That is the end result of that.
And why do we all do all this? The last part of that verse is
to give you an expected end. And that expected end is no other
than the person of the Lord Jesus Christ that we yearn for. I pray
the Lord will bless His Word through our hearts. You pray
with me. Lord, thank you for your word.
Thank you for bringing us here this morning. It truly is our
heart's desire, Lord, that you would reveal your face in the
person of thy dear son, the Lord Jesus Christ, through the preaching
of your gospel. Lord, remind us again that he
is our surety, our sinner substitute. He is our wonderful counselor.
He is the only cure. I pray that you would be pleased
once again to bless the message that you placed on the heart
of your pastor. Lord, give him freedom, give
him power. Lord, enable us to leave here once again, true Israelites,
knowing that one day, Lord, we will no longer have that limp.
We will be just like you. I ask these things in the name
of Christ. Amen. Thank you, Brother Byrd. In Isaiah chapter 14, at verse
14, Lucifer's words are recorded in God's Word. And he says, I
will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like
the Most High. And God says, yet thou shalt
be brought down to hell. Satan, by profession, is a counterfeiter. He has always sought to duplicate
the things of God. In doing that, he only perverts
the things of God, but that's all he can do. He watches what
God is doing and he tries to make something like it. And in
doing so, he produces a cheap, worthless counterfeit. That certainly can be seen in
religion today. Back when Charles Spurgeon was
preaching the gospel of God's grace in London, the church was
called the Metropolitan Tabernacle. And the Lord had placed his blessing
on that work, and in the latter part of the 19th century, tabernacles
came up everywhere. And everybody wanted to be called
a tabernacle. In the early part of the 20th
century, the gospel was preached through what was called Baptist
churches, and then all of a sudden everybody wanted to be a Baptist
church. In more recent years, the churches that are faithful
to the gospel have chosen to identify themselves as grace
churches. I stand amazed at the number
of grace churches that have popped up in Central Florida since we
started preaching the gospel here. It's just amazing. Satan's a counterfeiter. Now,
by grace, most of these groups simply mean anything goes. We're
a gracious people and we don't stand in judgment of anything
or anybody. We're very tolerant. We're very
open-minded. And like the free love movement
of the sixties, all it does is destroy the family and spread
disease. And that's all their definition
of grace does. It destroys the church and it
spreads the soul damning infection of sin. Truth is, words have meaning.
Otherwise, they make no sense. A man's words, over time, change
in meaning. We've seen that most recently. Spam used to be canned meat.
A router was a tool I had in my workshop to put an edge on
wood. Gay meant that you were happy
and a friend was somebody that you could truly count on. Those
words have changed their meanings, haven't they? When God speaks, the meaning
of the words that he uses don't change. They don't change. He's the same yesterday, today,
and forever. He said, I am the Lord, and I
change not. And that's the only hope you
sons of Jacobs have. The only reason you're not consumed
is because I don't change. You change, I don't change. We have an infallible source
of truth that is timeless. It's constant, it's eternal,
and in all the instability and changes of this world, God's
Word is sure and steadfast. So my question this morning in
light of that introduction is, What does God say grace means? What does grace really mean according
to the Word of God? And I have five definitions for
grace, and if your definition of grace loses any one of these
five definitions from God's Word, it's not grace. It's not grace. Grace, in order to be grace,
must be free. Grace, in order to be grace,
must be sovereign. Grace, in order to be grace,
must be effectual. Grace, in order to be grace,
must be jealous. And grace, in order to be grace,
must be irresistible. If it's not free, sovereign,
effectual, jealous, and irresistible, it's not grace. It's just another
word that man has changed the meaning of. And it's in the opposite direction
of what God means. I told you all the story back
before 9-11 when the airlines weren't quite as careful as they
are now. Hugo and I were sitting in an airport in Mexico waiting
for our flight. We'd gone down to visit Cody
down there. And I don't remember if we were
coming or going, but I remember there was a young couple that
sat down next to us, and they had a look of great concern on
their face. And they were going through their
paperwork. And this young man looked over at me, and he said,
we're not in Spain, are we? I said, no. He said, we're supposed
to be in Mérida, Spain. I said, this is Medina, Mexico.
They had gotten on a flight in Miami and went the opposite direction
of what they were supposed to go. Same name, same name of the city,
but they weren't even on the same continent. That's what men do. They take
the names and the words. Satan is a counterfeiter. He
takes the word of God and he changes the meaning of it. God
hasn't changed the meaning. And if you don't believe what
God says about it, well, you're on the wrong continent. And you've
been taken in the wrong direction. Grace in order to be grace, first
of all, must be free. Can grace be bought, bartered
for, or merited in any way? Can it be? By your will, by your
works, by your wisdom, can you manipulate the grace of God or
cause God to have favor upon you? Isaiah said in Isaiah chapter
55 verse 1, Oh, everyone that thirsteth, come into the waters.
He that hath no money, are you poor and destitute? Come ye, buy and eat, buy wine
and milk, without money and without price." Without money and without
price. And that word price means to
barter. It means to make a deal with
God. That's how most folks come to God. Lord, I'll believe you
and I'll serve you and I'll begin to do what's right and this is
what I need in return from you. Oh no. That's not free grace. Free grace, you can't barter
for it. You can't buy it. Wherefore do you spend money
for that which is not bread, and labor for that which satisfieth
not? That's the world's definition
of grace. That's Satan's perversion of
grace. God says grace in order to be
grace must be free. Turn to me in your Bibles to
Romans chapter five. The truth is you can't preach
grace free enough. You can't preach it free enough
because we all come into this world by nature a Pharisee. We all come into this world believing
that somehow we've got to pay for what we get from God. We've
got to merit favor with God. We've got to do our part. And that's not what God says.
Look at Romans chapter 5 beginning at verse 15. But not as the offense, so also
is the what? Free gift. When we got these
pews that you're sitting in right now, some of you remember we
had some old makeshift pews that we had put together from chairs
that we got from a hotel. And when the new pews came, we
took all the old pews and put them out there on the road. And
I put a big cardboard sign free while we were putting the new
pews in. And it took us most of the day to get this place
set up. And those things sat out there all day. Nobody stopped. Nobody asked
about them. I went out there, and I put $5
on the sign. Before I got back in the building,
somebody stopped, and they wanted all those pews. They wanted them
for free. But if you let me pay a little
something for them, I'll take them. Isn't that the way we are? No, no. Grace is free. You can't pay anything for it.
You don't get any credit. The price has been paid in full. God is completely satisfied. There's no contribution whatsoever
for you to make. It's free. That's why it's good
news. Look at verse 15. For if through the offense of
one many be dead, verse 15 of Romans chapter 5, that's the
offense of our father Adam, and when Adam fell, You fell. I fell. We were in the loins
of our father Adam. He is the federal head of the
human race. And when he died, we died in
him so that we're born into this world dead in our trespasses
and sins. That's how we come into this
world. For if through the offense of
one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by
grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many."
Oh, much more, much more. Where sin abounds, grace does
much more abound. And not as it was by the one
that sinned, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one to
condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification."
Oh, to be justified before God. To have no charge to be made
against you. That's what it means to be justified.
Innocent. No guilt. No condemnation. It's a free gift. For if by one man's offense death
reign by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace
and the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus
Christ. Therefore, as by the offense
of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so
by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto
justification of life for as by one man's disobedience many
were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous
moreover the law entered that the offense may abound but where
sin abounded grace did much more abound that as sin hath reigned
unto death even so might grace reign through righteousness unto
eternal life by Jesus Christ He's done it all. Oh, the law's
been satisfied. Justice has been served. It's
free. Free. Now, some have been attracted to this
message of free grace believing that what it meant
is that they can now do things they couldn't do in religion. They're excited about the message
of free grace, but associated with that message, they have
no love for Christ, no brokenness over their sin, no desire to
be the servants of God. Like a criminal who has escaped
from the confines of prison, they only continue in their illegal
activity. And here's what God says about
that. I've met these folks. I've met them. Brethren, you are called unto
liberty. Only use not your liberty as
an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. As free? Free, Peter says. Peter knew something about free
grace, didn't he? He said, I go fishing. I've destroyed any opportunity
that I could ever have to serve God. And the Lord pursued him,
didn't he? as free and not using your liberty
for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Yes, the law entered that sin
might abound, and where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. But look at verse 1 of chapter
6. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? God forbid. When we say that grace is free,
we mean that you can't pay for it. You can't bring anything
to the altar. Nothing. Grace, according to God's Word,
has to be free and it has to be sovereign. The only kind of grace that describes
God's grace is sovereign grace. There is no other kind of grace.
Who decides the benefactors of this free grace? Who decides? God says, I will have mercy upon
whom I will have mercy and whom I will harden. There's no such
thing as a grace that's not sovereign. If God's not in control of it,
then it's not grace. He said, I'm the potter, you
are the clay. I have the sovereign right to
fashion from the same lump of clay some vessels of honor and
some of dishonor. He hath done whatsoever he wills.
No man can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? He's
sovereign. He said, you did not choose me,
I chose you. He sovereignly elected a people
in the covenant of grace before the world began according to
his own sovereign good pleasure and his own sovereign will. That's what makes grace, grace.
It's all of God. He sovereignly redeemed those
that He chose in the covenant of grace. When the Lord Jesus
Christ bowed His mighty head, He purchased to God those that
God had chosen by His shed blood, and not one drop of His blood
was wasted. By Himself once and for all,
He sovereignly calls He makes His people willing in
the day of His power. What He opens, no man can shut. Many are called, but few are
chosen. God chooses those that He gives
the effectual call to. He sovereignly regenerates them
that He calls. He takes out their heart of stone
and puts in a heart of flesh. He gives to them the gift of
faith. He sovereignly keeps them from
falling. He sovereignly presents them
faultless before himself, before the throne of grace. He does
it all. You see, grace in order to be
grace, first of all, has to be free. And second of all, it has
to be sovereign. And third of all, it must be
effectual. effectual. Someone said, what
does that mean? It means it gets the job done. It means that when the Lord Jesus
Christ bowed his head on Calvary's cross and said, it is finished. That it was finished. He got
the job done. He provided to God Almighty everything
necessary for those that God had freely and sovereignly chosen
the covenant of grace. This is grace. Any other definition
of grace is a cheap counterfeit manufactured in the pit of hell. This is what God says about grace. God Almighty is satisfied. You shall call his name Jesus,
why? For he shall save his people. He's going to accomplish that
which I send him to do. He will not return unto me void. Even the woman at the well knew
that when the Messiah came, he would lead them into all truth.
And what did our Lord say? He that speaketh to you is He. Don't you love that story in
Genesis chapter 43 when Jacob's sons were down there in a drought,
in a famine, and Joseph all along had been sent by God down to
Egypt to prepare for them and to save them? And Jacob complains
in chapter 42, he says, everything is against me. He said, I've
lost Joseph and now you want to take Benjamin? In fact, everything
was for him, but he couldn't see it. He couldn't see it. Judah steps up. And representing none other than
the Lord Jesus Christ, he says, of my hand shalt thou require
him. Speaking to his father Jacob
about taking Benjamin with him down to Egypt. He said, of my
hand thou shalt require him. If I bring him back not unto
thee, and set him before thee, let me bear the blame for ever. Now that's the Lord Jesus Christ
speaking to the Father. Father of my hand, require them. And if I bring them not back
to thee, I'll bear the blame forever." Is it possible for
the Lord Jesus Christ to bear blame before God Almighty for
not having succeeded in what God sent Him to do? No. He succeeded. He put away, once
and for all, all the sins of His people through the sacrifice
of Himself. He's a successful savior. He's
not that Jesus that the religious world talks about that wants
to save everybody and doing his best to get it done. No, his
grace is effectual. It's effectual. He gets it done. It's free, it's sovereign, it's
effectual. You hear another message of grace
that denies any of these glorious truths, it's another Jesus, it's
another gospel, it's another grace. The grace of God, in order
to be grace, must be jealous. Jealous. Is there any other kind
of grace? than God's free, sovereign, effectual, irresistible grace? No. There is no other kind of
grace. Exodus chapter 34 verse 14 says,
For thou shalt worship no other God, for the Lord, whose name
is Jealous, is a jealous God. Our God's name is Jealous. He said, I'll not share my glory
with another. I'm not going to share it with
you. And I'm not going to share it with another God. I know I've made mention of this
a time or two, but I can't help but to mention it again. Right
down the road here just a few months ago, they've taken it
down. It was a big black billboard. I passed it every day going back
home from here. Every time I left here, and it
had in huge white lettering, Jesus is, with a white line and
a period. That's what it said. You fill
in the blank. He'll be whatever you want Him
to be. You need some money, just write in money right there. You
need a new marriage, just write in wife, husband. Whatever you
want Him to be, you just fill it in. and he'll morph into the
God that you need him to be. That's not the God I read about
in the scriptures. He says, my name is jealous.
I am who I am. I don't change. Not for you, not for anybody. Ephesians chapter 1 tells us
about this grace being all for the glory of His grace. Grace in order to be grace. God's
grace. It's free. It's sovereign. It's effectual. And it's jealous. And finally, God's grace is irresistible. It's irresistible. Can man overpower the free, sovereign,
effectual, jealous grace of God? Can they? If you listen to what's
being preached in the world, yeah. Yeah. Won't you accept Jesus into your
heart? I mean, they present God as if He's in heaven, wringing
His hands, just begging men to let Him have His way. And they
say that he's irresistible. They say that he's sovereign.
They say he's omnipotent. That is until he comes up against
the immovable object of man's free will and then he's stymied. He's just stopped in his tracks.
Bless his heart, he can't get it done. That's not the grace
I read about. That's not the God I read about.
Our God is irresistible. And when he's ready to make you
willing in the day of his power, he's going to take out your heart
of stone and put in a heart of flesh. He's going to bless you
with faith. He's going to open the eyes of
your understanding. He's going to unstop your ears
and you're going to find yourself shut up to Christ. No place else
to go. No place else to go. That's kind
of grace I need. If God gives me another option,
I'm going to take it. I know myself. If He doesn't
shut me up to Himself and make me to believe, I won't believe.
Grace to be grace must be irresistible or no one will be saved. No one will be saved if it's
not irresistible. They say, well, God wants you
to love Him freely. He won't force Himself on you. If He doesn't force Himself on
you, you'll never love Him. And when He does, you love Him
freely. The power of God knows no limits. Omnipotence is seen most gloriously
when it overpowers the rebellious will of a sinner and makes them
willing. That's when omnipotence is most
glorious. There's a whole lot more glory
in the power of God in changing a sinner into a saint than there
is in causing the creation of the universe. But that's what He does. His
grace is irresistible. What He opens, no man can shut. Can an Ethiopian change the color
of his skin or a leopard change his spots? No, but God can. Can a rich man enter into the
kingdom of heaven? Those who are rich in their own
righteousness, rich in their own pride, rich in what they
believe to be the power of their own will, can a rich man enter
into the kingdom of heaven? And the Lord said, it's easier
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Now that's pretty much an impossibility.
And the disciples said, Lord, then who can be saved? Remember
what the Lord said? With man it is impossible, but
with God all things are possible. Yeah, I can get that camel right
through the eye of a needle. And I will. Who can bring a clean thing out
of an unclean? Job said, not one, not one. God can. When David fetched Mephibosheth,
Mephibosheth didn't have a choice about it. Mephibosheth came fear and trembling,
didn't he? But he was brought. And he found
out that the king's grace was free. He found out it was sovereign. He found out it was effectual.
He found out it was jealous. And he found out it was irresistible. Zacchaeus, make haste and come
down. for today I must abide in thy
house." I'm coming to your house today, Zacchaeus. I must needs go through Samaria.
The Lord knew that woman was going to be there and he purposed
to show grace on her and that grace was irresistible. The only kind of grace that God
has anything to do with is free, it's sovereign, it's effectual,
it's jealous, and it's irresistible. And if you've believed any other
form of grace or heard any other message of grace, it's from the
counterfeiter. It's from the one who can do
nothing but take the things of God and pervert them. from hell. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly
Father, we ask that you would be pleased now to open the windows of heaven
and to pour out your grace into the hearts of your children.
We pray that you would open our hearts. We pray, Lord, that you
would make yourself irresistible to us. We ask, Lord, that we would bring nothing in our
hands, that Christ would receive all
the honor, all the glory, and all the praise for your free
grace. For it's in His name we ask it.
Amen. Tom? Number 45 in the soft back
tendon. Let's stand together.