return with me back to Acts chapter
26. This is the last message we'll
have on this verse, but I trust that we'll go back to this verse
again and again and again. The Lord gives Paul, the apostle to the
Gentiles, a commission He says in verse 16 of Acts 26, But rise
and stand upon thy feet, for I have appeared unto thee for
this purpose. Our God is a God of purpose. Our God is a God
who appears to people. Our God is a God who comes into
this dark world and reveals himself to particular people at the time
that he calls the time of love. He comes as a creator. He says, to make, this is his
purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things
which thou hast seen and of those things in which I will appear
unto thee. When the Lord appears to his
people, reveals himself through his word and his word spoken,
he will bless that by, in a sense, repeated visits and a growing
revelation of the glories of God, but the object of that revelation
never changes one little tiny bit, to make thee a minister
and to make thee a witness of things which have seen and those
things in which I will appear unto thee. It's a great promise,
isn't it, that our Christ, our God, will appear to people. Delivering thee from the people
and from the Gentiles unto whom I now send thee, our Lord in
purpose will send the Apostle Paul to particular people at
particular times. And this is the commission of
the church. This is the description of believers. This is a description of the
sovereign work of God in the hearts of people. to open their
eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of
Satan unto God that they may receive the forgiveness of sins. And you can add that receiving
to the inheritance among them which are sanctified by receiving
the faith that is in me. It's a glorious description of
our God's work. And when God sends his people
and God in purpose sends them, the next verse is always going
to be true. Verse 19, whereupon our King
Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision. When
God acts and when God acts with purpose, it will come to pass
always. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we pray that you might bless your word and cause us to find
ourselves, heavenly Father, humbled before you and having, as our
Lord Jesus Christ described, great faith. We do pray for those
who around the world of your people amongst us and here, Heavenly
Father, who are ailing and feeling the frailty of their flesh, and
we pray your mercy upon them, Heavenly Father. May your fellowships
be a place of comfort and love, but most of all, a place where
we are caused to take our eyes off the things of this world
and to look at things which are eternal. Bless your word to our
hearts, Heavenly Father, for we pray. in Jesus' name. Open eyes. We've often said that
the opening of eyes is the opening of the eyes of understanding.
I love what Paul prayed for the Ephesians in 1.17. He ceased
not to give thanks. When you see faith and when you
see belief, you're always giving thanks, aren't you? Always giving
thanks. And making mention of you in
my prayers is always a cause for taking those evident trophies
of grace back to our God. That the garden of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom
and revelation in the knowledge of him that the eyes of your
understanding being enlightened. that you may know what is the
hope of His calling, what is the riches of the glory of His
inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness
of His power to us who believe. We're speaking about great faith.
If you look at this verse in Ephesians 1 verse 20 with me.
1 verse 19. The exceeding greatness of his
power. For you to believe, it requires nothing other than an
exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe. How do we
believe? Why do we believe? According
to the working of his mighty power. True saving faith is nothing
less than the operation of God's mighty power. It speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ.
As I said earlier, faith is both in the Scriptures, a verb, it's
a doing word, but so often in the Scriptures faith is a noun.
It's a descriptive word. Faith is a description of the
faithful one. But 1 Peter says in verse 18, was foreordained before the foundation
of the world. See, faith has an object, an
eternal God, an ordaining God, a foreordaining God, but was
manifest in these last times for you, who by Him do believe
in God. By Him you believe in God. All true
saving faith is the operation of God. All true saving faith
is the operation of God by the revelation of God, according
to our verse in 26.18 of Acts. All true saving faith comes as
a result of being set free from the kingdom of darkness, which
is everything in this world that doesn't give honour and glory
to He who is the light of this world. It always comes as a result
of being set free from the captivity of Satan. And Satan's great captivity,
isn't it, is that you shall be his guards. You can make the
decision. Satan's great captivity is exercised by him saying, did
God really say? Did he really say? The centurion
had great faith, didn't he? That we read about in Luke chapter
7. He just, you say a word, it's true. You say a word and existence
comes into creation. You say a word and my servant
will be healed. You just speak a word. Great
faith. Great faith has has an inheritance,
which is what Peter talks about, doesn't it? We have an inheritance.
We have an inheritance. It's uncorruptible. If you're
in 1 Peter again, verse 4 says, We are born again, back to verse
3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which
according to his abundant mercy hath forgotten us again into
a livelihood by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not
away, reserved in heaven for you. You see, these promises
that our God made in Acts 26, verse 18 are fulfilled. in the presence of these apostles,
and they are what these apostles pray for, don't they? He talks
about the forgiveness of sins, and it says, elect according
to the full knowledge of God, verse 2 of 1 Peter, the full
knowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the
Spirit. The Spirit reveals the sanctifying
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are set apart by him unto
obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. That's forgiveness of sins. Open their eyes. Turn them and
cause them to know the perfect finished work that I have done.
Cause them to know that their sins are forgiven completely. You receive the forgiveness of
sins. You don't do the forgiveness of sins. You receive an inheritance
because of your links to a family. You receive an inheritance because
someone has died and you have been written into their will
and you have received a promise. And our great Savior lives forevermore. He has the power of an endless
life to make sure that all of his promises and all of his inheritance
reaches all those that he has promised it to. And we spoke
last week about the glory of what it is to be sanctified.
among them which are sanctified by faith, that is in me. As I said earlier, faith is a
noun. But faith also is a possession,
isn't it, of our Lord Jesus Christ. I love that our phrase says,
the faith, it's a noun. That is a present reality, always,
ever-present reality, is in me. It's not external ever to the
Lord Jesus Christ and it's never separated from Him. It's in me. It's personal. It's internal. It's expressed in His perfect
obedience to His Father, to His Word. He's perfectly honoring
the character of His God. What did he say? At the beginning,
I've come to do thy will. I've come to do thy will. How
did he finish his life? Into your hands. I commend my spirit. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing,
isn't it, to have some time that the Lord has set aside for us
this morning to contemplate the faithfulness of our God. everything
hinges upon him being faithful. And he can't not be faithful.
I'll read some verses out of the Old Testament and we'll just
contemplate something of the glory of our faithful God. Deuteronomy
7.9 says, Know therefore. Know it. Know it. Take it to
heart and write it down. know therefore that the Lord
your God he is God the faithful God the faithful God you might
remember in 2nd Timothy that if we are faithless what happens
he abideth faithfully he remains faithful always Psalm 89 is a
glorious gospel psalm, as all the psalms are glorious gospel
psalms, but Psalm 89 speaks of him actually being, as it were,
surrounded and girdled by faithfulness. Psalm 89, verse 8. Let's go back to verse 7. God
is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and be
had in reverence of all them that are about him. The Lord
God of hosts, who is a strong God like unto thee? All to thy
faithfulness round about thee. Faithfulness is the girdle, as
it was. He wraps himself in his faithfulness,
which is his strength. Even Balaam was caused in Numbers
23 to acknowledge the faithfulness of our God. Our God is not a
man. God is not a man that he should
lie. He has spoken. Shall he not make it good? You might recall that Jeremiah,
when he was lamenting over the destruction that man had brought
upon himself in the destruction of Jerusalem. Religious men had
brought upon themselves by their proud arrogance and refusal to
hear the warnings and heed the warnings of God. And the very
promises of God were faithfully fulfilled in the midst of Jeremiah
and others. And it's a horrifying scene to
contemplate and to read about. But in the midst of that, in
Lamentations 3, Jeremiah says, great is thy faithfulness. Great
is thy faithfulness. He's faithful in maintaining
this universe. You might recall people are nervous
and worried about climate change. And I think we've been told ever
since I was a little kid, I think, probably still in primary school,
that the world's about to end. The world's about to end. We've
got too many people. We've got to get rid of people. It's too cold. We've
got to warm it up again. It's too hot. We've got to get
rid of it. We've got to do this. We're destroying the Earth. And
there's no more dirt left, no more arable soil left. And wasn't
last year the same? We've got 12 years to go. Whatever
it is, it just goes on and on and on, doesn't it? Y2K was supposed
to destroy the place and nuclear weapons were going to destroy
it in the 50s and the 60s. What did God say? What does God
say? Whose words are going to be true?
One thing that a little bit of history should teach us is that
all the men and all their prognostications, they're wrong all the time. And
God's right all the time. What does he say in Genesis 8.22?
Seed, time, and harvest will continue unto the end. Mark it down, brothers and sisters,
seed, time and harvest. There may not be the distribution
of the seed, time and harvest, but there hasn't been starvation
on this world other than the fact that the food that has been
wasted in so much of the world has not actually got to the people
who are starving. Seed, time and harvest is going to continue
to the end. Our God is faithful. Our God is faithful. He makes
a promise and He keeps His promise. That's what it is to be faithful.
Oh, how much I want to be found faithful. Whenever anyone asks,
what can they pray for me, I've always, almost instantly said,
just pray that we'd be found faithful. Pray that I would be
found faithful. Pray that we would be found faithful
to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is faithful. It doesn't matter how many years
are involved in his faithfulness. Thousands of years passed between
the promise in Genesis 3.15 that the seed of the woman would crush
the head of the serpent and have his heel bruised in the process.
Thousands of years before the Lord Jesus Christ came. And it
came exactly, precisely on time. Always. Abraham was promised
was promised that that land of Canaan where he resided and owned
nothing but a burial plot. Abraham, the man, the father
of the faithful, he was looking around for a city which is much
more important than anything he ever saw there in Canaan.
He was looking for a city, his foundations. were the foundations
of God. His builder and maker was God.
But he said 450 years. 450 years your people are going
to be down there in Egypt. 450 years. And all through that
time, through all of the prosperity of Joseph and all of the depravity
that they were placed in by their servitude to the Egyptians, what
does Exodus 1241 say? When they came out, it was to
the very day. to the very day. Our God is faithful. Our God is faithful. Quite simply, you cannot ever
believe him in vain. You can't ever out trust him. You can't trust him too much.
You can't and that word trust and faith is to rely upon him.
You can't rely upon him too much. He's proven himself faithful.
He's promised his faithfulness. There is absolutely nothing in
this creation and nothing in all of this world that we have
seen which could cause anyone to hint that our God is not perfectly
faithful. Faithful to his promises. Faithful
to his people. That's the basis, isn't it, of
our rest in him. that he's made a promise, hasn't
he? He's made a promise. What extraordinary promises he's
made. If they didn't come from the
lips of our glorious Saviour, you'd be wondering about how
extraordinarily unbelievable they are. Jesus said to Martha,
didn't he, at the tomb of Lazarus, I am the resurrection and the
life. He that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. He made the promise. And just
a few moments later, having prayed to his father and reminded those
people, if you believe you'd see the
glory of God. And he spoke those glorious words,
the words of salvation is not the words of seeing like Lazarus
come forth. And he had to specifically say,
Lazarus, because the rest of the world would have come forth.
One day you'll come back, won't he? And they'll all come out
of the graves. Wherever they are, they'll all come out of
the graves. He's faithful even in the words of those who are
his enemies. He's faithful in ruling over
the wickedness of men. Caiaphas had murder in his heart
from the very time he heard of the Lord Jesus Christ, from the
very time when he heard of the Lord Jesus Christ and he had
his righteousness, his religious righteousness stripped from him. Like all of those Pharisees and
scribes and all those religious people in Jerusalem. From that
very moment on, he had hatred in his heart for God. It is remarkable,
I heard something the other day that really The only way you
got to hear from God in the days of John the Baptist is you had
to go out of Jerusalem, away from all the religion and all
that man had created, and you had to go into a wilderness to
see a peasant. It's lovely, isn't it? But Caiaphas
heard about the raising of Lazarus from the dead. And what's the
solution to their problem? Talk about wickedness of men
and the blindness and futility. We'd better kill him again. Isn't
four days enough? We're going to kill him. We're
going to kill Lazarus again and we're going to kill the Lord
Jesus Christ. But what did Caiaphas say? He said, you know nothing
at all. Dear, oh dear, the blindness
of people and their pride. You know nothing at all. said if we let him alone all
men will believe on him and the Romans shall come and take away
both our place and our nation that's exactly what man What
religious man is interested in is our place, our place of honour
and our place of prestige, and what we have gathered for ourselves,
our nation. And one of them, John 11, 49,
one of them named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year,
said unto them, You know nothing at all, nor consider that it
is expedient for us that one man should die for the people
and that the whole nation should perish not. let's kill him, let's
kill him and save our nation. What happened? What was really
going on? And this spake he, not of himself, but being high
priest that year, prophesied that Jesus should not die for
that nation. And not only for that nation
only, but also he should gather together in one the children
of God that are scattered abroad. God is faithful. overruling all
of the activities of wicked religious people, overruling all of the
activities of the enemies of God's people. There's nothing
beyond our God in His power. He's faithful. He's faithful
in His promises. He is faithful who promised. He makes a promise. and that
promise is done. He makes a promise and the promise
is done. Why is Romans 8 written, those
famous verses in Romans 8, why are they written in the past
tense? For them he did foreknow. he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
he did predestinate, them he also called. And whom he called,
them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he
also glorified. It's in the completed tense.
Why? Because when God speaks, it is
done. It is finished. He's faithful. He's faithful
in telling us the truth of what we are. He's faithful in humbling
his people like he did his servant Paul. He's faithful in preserving
his people. The Corinthians were famous for
their wickedness. As a city they were famous for
their wickedness. You go to their church in Corinth and you look
there and you think all the problems that they had. Dear oh dear,
there's hardly a church on this earth that would want to claim
the name of Christian and live the way the Corinthians lived,
with all their opposition and all of their pride and other
things. What does he say of them in verse 9? God is faithful,
by whom you are called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus
Christ our Lord. Aren't you grateful? that you're
called into the fellowship of Jesus Christ, his son, and preserved
in that fellowship, not on account of how good you are, not on account
of what you've done, not on account of what you might do. He calls
us. He calls us in grace. He calls us in mercy. He calls
us in love. He's faithful in disciplining
us. He's faithful in his correcting
of us. I love that verse in 1 Thessalonians
chapter 5 at the end of that letter. And there are all of
these glorious promises and exhortations. And then he says in verse 23
of 1 Thessalonians, and the very God of peace, sanctify you wholly. If you are sanctified, you're
always sanctified completely. You can't be sanctified in part.
And I pray your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. For you who've come to know anything
of the weakness of your flesh, the power of the promises of
our God to preserve you, I need to be preserved, brothers and
sisters, on my own worst enemy. I can't get out of my own road.
Preserved. Listen to him. Preserved, blameless. If you're in Christ Jesus, you'll
be preserved, blameless, under the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. And then he goes on to say, just so you know the confidence,
you can have confidence, you can rely, you can rest, he says,
faithful is he that calleth you. Then he goes on to say, who also
will do it. He does the calling, he does
the doing. He creates the fruit of lips
that sing praises to his name. He's faithful in revealing himself
to his people. earn the revelation of the Lord
Jesus Christ on the Damascus road. There's only one thing
that Paul had done, sin. There's only one thing he'd done.
And yet when the Lord met him, Paul was humbled. And I love what he says in 2
Timothy, and we sing the song often, doesn't it? He says, I'm
not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed. He doesn't say
I know all about him. I know him whom I have believed. See, believing has an object,
a real object that you've met. I know him I know whom I have
believed and persuaded. I'm persuaded. Are you persuaded
that He is able to keep, that He has the power, He has the
authority, He has the ability to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day? I haven't committed it to myself.
I'm not looking to anything I've done. I'm not looking. Paul declared
himself in Romans 7 a wretched man, a wretched man. And we know
that Romans was written towards the end of his public ministry.
It was written from Corinth. He says so, that he's on his
way to Jerusalem and he prays that the arms that he's collected
for the Jews will be acceptable to him. We know when it was written.
The rest of his life was spent in jail, pretty much. And he
says, I'm a wretched man. I'm a wretched man. And he says,
I'm the chief of sinners. Christ Jesus came into this world
to save sinners of whom I am the chief. Oh, he's faithful. He's faithful. He's faithful. There is glorious, glorious pictures
of the faithfulness between the members of the Trinity. What
extraordinary relationship they had. Please don't ever forget,
they had no need of anything to create. Creation is a display
of their glory. Creation exists. That God might
be in fellowship with his people, but in doing so that all of the
glory of the depth of his character could be revealed. We wouldn't
know grace if it wasn't for the fall. We wouldn't know the faithfulness
of the Lord Jesus Christ if it wasn't for the cross. We wouldn't
know what sin is if it wasn't for the cross. We wouldn't know
the character of God. It's about his revelation. It's so beautifully pictured,
isn't it? in the work of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Our God is eternally faithful,
and his son is also. He just trusted his father. He
simply trusted his father. He lived in flesh like you and
I do, in a world like you and I do, and he lived in more difficulty
in this world than we ever knew. He had to look upon people and
know what was in their hearts. He had to look upon his enemies
and know what was going to happen. Knowledge and love increase the
pain of this world rather than diminish it. Our God is faithful. The Son is faithful to the Father. The Father is faithful to the
Son. The Holy Spirit is faithful to
the Father and the Son. They are covenantally faithful.
This world rolls on, not in some random pattern. This world rolls
because there's an eternal covenant, as David said on his deathbed.
You have just turned it a second Samuel 23 because it's so so
significant what David did. So many people want to deny David
the glory of what he did. I heard a sermon last week that
said that And it was quoting the words of David and it was
saying David only received any blessings from God because he
was obedient. And all the blessings that David
received were received on the basis of his obedience, not when
he was dying, he didn't say that. He would have done occasionally
in the wickedness of his pride. But he says, he speaks of his
God He speaks of his God. These are the last words of David.
The son of Jesse and the man who was raised up on high and
anointed of God, the God of Jacob and the sweet Psalmist of Israel
said, the spirit of the Lord spake by me and his word was
in my tongue. The God of Israel said, the rock
of Israel. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
rock. He's the rock who followed them through the wilderness.
He was the rock in which Moses was hidden. He's the rock from
which the water flowed. There was life from that rock
that followed them in their desert wilderness. You can read it in
1 Corinthians 10. The rock of Israel spoke to me.
God the Father spoke to him. God the Spirit spoke to him and
by him, and God the Son spoke to him. And I love what he says. I've said earlier that faith
has an object. When these men were exercising
a God-given faith, they always had respect to the character
of God. The God of Israel, the Rock of
Israel, spoke to me, He that ruleth over men. Which men? every single one that has ever
drawn breath on this planet. He that ruleth over men, is he
ruling over them now? That word ruleth means that he's
still ruling. He hasn't given up his rule for one tiny minute.
You've given him power over all flesh, is his petition in John
17. But listen to what he says. He
that ruleth over all men must be just. He must be just. Our God must and is holy. Our God is just. Everything he does is just. Always perfectly just. And the
greatest example of the justice of God is when that holy one,
the just one, as Peter says in Acts 4, the just one was put
to death on Calvary's tree. That was an act of God's justice.
It was an act of God's justice. The Lord Jesus Christ was guilty when he took responsibility for
my sins in their surety in that eternal covenant that David will
go on to speak about. He was guilty of my sin. And
God the Father made him to be sin, and the sins of all of God's
people from all of this creation are laid on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the justice of God, the justice of God raised the sword of God's
holy justice and slew his darling son. If there was ever a time when
God might have winked at sin or passed it by, it would have
been then. Our God, listen to what our text
says, our God must be just. He's just. And now the very character
of God in his justice and his holiness and his faithfulness
is the very comfort of believers. God cannot be just and punish
the Lord Jesus Christ for my sins and then punish me again. That's what it is to be justified.
It is to be declared by God that you have never sinned. Did the
Lord Jesus Christ ever sin? I was one with him. That's the
very righteousness of God. That's the righteousness of the
saints. You see how David on his deathbed is pleading to the
character of God and honoring the character of God. He must
be just. He must rule in the fear of God.
He rules in the reverence for the character of God. He reveres
his character. Modern religion hasn't got a
clue about the character of God. They'd never ever say the things
they do about God. They'd never reduce him to someone
who's wandering around this world as a beggar at the feet of sovereign
man. that never present him as making
an offer to people, as if somehow the Lord Jesus Christ had a death
that covered the sins of all humanity. If he died for all
of humanity, then all of humanity must be saved. What did David
say? God must be just. It's an act of injustice to think
that God could punish his son and then punish those same people
in hell. And why do they go to hell? Not because of the death
of the Lord Jesus. They go to hell because they
haven't believed in him, is what they say. All the Lord Jesus
has done is made an offer and he's laid it on the table and
you accept it by your activity of faith. The most modern statement
of faith that I have read says that he died for all those who
would believe in him. It's subtle, isn't it? It's subtle
and it's profoundly disingenuous and deliberately so. Why don't
they say simply what he really did? He died for his people,
that's what he said. I lay down my life for my sheep.
He laid down his life for his church. He shed his precious
blood for his church. Why don't they say the simple things that
really are true and honour the character and the glory of God?
Because they don't know him. It is ultimately as simple as
that. If you know him, if you have
seen him as Isaiah saw him, if you have seen him as Job saw
him, you won't have any question about his holiness and his justice.
You won't have any question about your need of grace. You won't
have any question about where to go. They don't know him. Listen to
what he goes on to say. And he shall be as the light
of the morning when the sun rises. When the darkness is dispelled,
the Lord Jesus Christ shines, doesn't he? It's only his shining
that dispels the darkness. Even as a morning without cloud
is a tender grass springing out of the earth by the clear shining
after rain. They're glorious pictures of
the Lord and his sovereign mercy in the hearts of people. And
then he says this verse that we quote often, alone my house
be not so with God. Now whether that's David speaking
about his own personal life, which was a mess, or about his
family, he was one of the most dysfunctional, had one of the
most dysfunctional families that had ever been recorded in the
scriptures. Children murdering each other. Sons raping sisters. My house is a mess. He may also
be talking about the whole house of Israel, whichever one it is,
and it's probably all three. My house is not so with God.
My house is not what I want it to be. My house is not what it
should be. Yet, listen to the words of David,
yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant. Who's the one who made
the covenant? Who's the one who made the promises
of that covenant? Who is the faithful God? He made
with me. One of these people I was listening
to last week said that God has made a covenant. He was speaking
about the eternal covenant, believe it or not. I thought this would
be interesting. He said, well, God has made a covenant. God
has made promises. And our part of the covenant
is that we have to bring our belief to it. And when we bring
our belief to it, God can fulfill his part of the covenant. David
didn't say that at all, did he? What did he say? He had made
with me an everlasting covenant. We think of everlasting as something
that sort of starts and has a never-ending sort of nature to it. Everlasting
means it had no beginning and no ending. It's eternal. An everlasting covenant ordered
in all things and sure. Why is it sure? because a faithful
God made the promise. A faithful son honored that promise. And a faithful Holy Spirit comes
and he delivers that promise to the hearts of these people
and causes them to be created anew in righteousness and in
true holiness. And that new creation sees what
the old creation is and says it's hopeless and I'm unworthy. And the new creation sees the
creator and says he's worthy. Ordered in all things and sure.
This is what David goes on to say. This is all my salvation. My salvation has got nothing
to do with what I have done. It's what God has done with me.
Ordered and sure. This is all my salvation and
it's all I want. I don't want to have some righteousness
that men see and can applaud in this world. It's all I want. It's all my desire. It's all
my desire. Although we make it not to grow,
an eternal covenant doesn't need to grow. If it's ordered and
sure in all times and it's perfect and it's completed and it's signed
and sealed, he doesn't have to make it grow. I don't need to
see it getting any better. I just need to know that it's
true. I just need for God to come and reveal himself yet again. Our sovereign saviour. was faithful. He was eternally faithful. He
was covenantally faithful. He who was made of a woman was
made under the law. Someone had to keep God's law
perfectly. Someone had to obey God perfectly. Someone had to exercise faithfulness
to the very commands and precepts of our God. Someone had to faithfully
honour the very character of God. Someone had to faithfully
honour the word of God. And that's the glory, isn't it?
That's the glory of our union with Him. His covenant faithfulness
in His marriage union, we are one with Him. We are one with
Him. Everything that the Lord Jesus
Christ did on this earth, He did as an us. That's what He
said to John the Baptist, isn't it? John the Baptist said, I've
got no reason, I'm not worthy to undo your shoelaces. I'm not
worthy to bow down to your dusty feet. And you want me to baptise
you? And the Lord Jesus Christ says,
Suffer it to be so now, because it becometh us to fulfil all
righteousness. He fulfilled all righteousness.
People want to put people back under the mosaic law, don't we?
And say that your obedience is going to earn you rewards and
special prizes and jewels in your crown. We've kept the law,
brothers and sisters in Christ. I perfectly obeyed God's law
in precept, in thought, in heart, in motive, in action, in every
way. 2,000 years ago when I walked
on this earth in the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm one with him. I'm
united to him. We've kept the law. If you're
faithful, if you have faith, It's the faith of Jesus Christ
that's given to you. That's what he says, isn't it?
The faith that is in me. It is the gift of God. It is
the gift of God's grace according to Ephesians 2. I love what Peter
said in Acts chapter 3 regarding the man who was healed at the
gate beautiful. In his name, through faith in his name, has
made this man strong, whom you now see and know, yea, listen
to it, the faith which is by him, the faith which is through
him, has given him this perfect soundness. He's made him perfect. The faith that's by him has given
him It made him complete, made him perfect. All of God's gifts
come down from the Father of lights. It is just an illumination. His eyes opened. Darkness expelled
by the light. Satan robbed of his goods. Forgiveness
of sins, inheritance, all gifts of God. It's the faith. And when Paul
came back from his mission journey, he rehearsed all that God had
done and how he had opened the door of faith unto them. He opens a door of faith, isn't
that glorious? One of the prayers that I'd love
for you to pray for us in these interesting times where we have
had more challenges of late than often we ever have is that the
Lord would open a door of utterance. And sometimes he opens the door
of utterance just so that we would find comfort in the fact
that we have an opportunity to bear witness to our God, that
we trust that he opens the door of utterance, the door of faith,
that his children might be rescued out of the horrible, evil darkness
of this man-made works religion which permeates this world. So
what did Peter say on that day of the Jerusalem Council? He's
purified their hearts by faith. Purified their hearts. How do
you get to purify your heart by something you do? You purify
your hearts. The Lord Jesus Christ purified
the hearts of his people, isn't it? And by faith, we just believe
what he said. Paul finished his time with the elders
at Ephesus on that beach at Miletus, testifying both the Jews and
Greeks' repentance towards God and faith toward our Lord Jesus
Christ. That word toward means a point
entered, a point reached or entered into. It's the faith, the faith
of the Lord Jesus Christ. I love Paul being forced to give
his description of his testimony in Acts 24. He said that, on
the way they call heresy, everyone else calls you a heretic. So
worship I, the God of my fathers, believing all things that are
written in the law and the prophets. Simply to believe is to acknowledge
the fact that God as he did with the Apostle Paul, and he does
with all of his servants throughout this world, brings a testimony
of who God is. And Paul was a witness, and so
it was God's testimony of God. Our testimony is God's testimony
of his Son. We just keep saying, this is
what God says. I'm not interested in other people's
opinions about God, and I'm not even interested in my own opinion.
I just want to say this is what God says, then I'm safe. This is what God says. He speaks
in 1 John 5 about the witnesses. And he says in Challenge, and
I have to shorten this a bit, I'm sorry, but if we receive
the witness of men, verse 9, 1 John 5, the witness of God
is greater, for this is the witness of God which he has testified
of his son. So it's God, the Father's witness
about his son that we're bearing witness to. He that believeth on the Son has
the witness in himself. He that believeth not God Make hath made him a liar. They're not shoes that I want
anyone that I know or love ever to stand in. There are countless multitudes
aren't there, and multitudes beyond number, and some right
now going out of this world into the presence of God, believing
themselves righteous and looking to their works and their activities
as the evidence of it. And they don't believe the testimony
of God about his son. They're making him a liar. May
God preserve and protect us. Why? Because he believeth not
the record that God gave of his son. This is my beloved son. Hear ye him. Hear ye him. Faith looks to the faithful one. The unchanging, unchangeable
Sovereign God. The modern translation of the
scriptures, and it's one of the reasons we love the King James
Version so much, is it declares the reality of what the faithfulness
is. I quote that verse from Galatians
2.20 often, isn't it? The life I now live in the flesh,
I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God. It's not my faith
in him, I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God. It's in many
other passages of scripture. In Romans 3, 19-26, you'll see
in our translation it talks about the faithfulness of Christ. The
faithfulness of Christ. Galatians 2, 16-20, Philippians
3, 9. So Paul has one desire, to be
found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of
the Lord, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness
which is of God by faith. He wants to be found in him.
Isn't it glorious? If you're found in him when God
goes looking for you, all he sees is the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's where I want to be found, in him, my life hidden with Christ
in God. Ephesians chapter 3 verse 12
makes these wonderful promises and I'll just close reading it
to you and trust the Lord might cause you to go and contemplate
what it is to be a recipient of the faith of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He speaks of the ministry that
was given him earlier in this chapter. And he says, and he wants to
make, verse 9, to make all men see what is the fellowship of
the mystery which from the beginning of the world has been hidden
God who created all things by Jesus Christ. To the intent that
now under the principalities and powers in heavenly places
might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God. Only
the church will ever know the manifold wisdom of God. He is
our wisdom. That wisdom is Christ Jesus himself. According to the eternal purpose
which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness. We have boldness. Absence of
fear. A reverence for God. Looking
to Him. Not being willing to look anywhere
else but Him. boldness. We have boldness and
access. Access. We have access to God,
brothers and sisters. Don't not use the access that
he's given to us. We have access, not just access,
but we have access with confidence. We have a freedom to enter with
confidence. by the faith of Him. By the faith of Him. You'll be needy. What a remarkable
thing, isn't it? We have freedom to enter. I'll
just finish by relating one story which I've related some time
ago, but we lived in that big sort of dormitory in India that
had a big hall down the middle and across the way from our flat
was the dining room. And up and down that hallway,
120 girls walked every day in and out, in and out, chattering
away, and there were probably 15 or 20 servants of various
sorts coming in. And we had our door, and they
had big sort of double doors, because it used to be a hospital,
big, tall sort of double doors. And every day, Every time we
sat down to a meal, there were knocks on the door. They were
either my students, or Lisa's friends, or our teaching staff,
or other people, or the kitchen men, or the sweeping men, or
the sweeping lady. It was just constant, knock,
knock, knock. Every time we were in the flat,
it would just be all the time, and I'd set my chair next to
the door so I didn't have to get up to open the door to let
them in. Every night, all weekend, especially
when we had 25 girls that lived there and our living room was
their living room and our kitchen was their kitchen. So they were
in and out all hours of the day and night. And then sometimes
the door would open. Why? Because the children were
coming in. The only people that never had
to knock on the door were the children. They had confidence. They had access. They had a welcome
into the very presence of God. Presence of us, as we do into
the presence of God. Not because of my faithfulness,
but because of the faithfulness of Him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that
you might continue to Reveal your son by your spirit's work,
illuminating your word to our hearts, Heavenly Father, that
we might know the riches of our inheritance, that we might know
and have boldness and confidence in our access into your presence.
Father, all things are ready because your son, when he shared
his precious life's blood, and our sins were washed away
and gone forever, Heavenly Father. We have boldness and access into
your presence because of who he is and what he has done. Oh, Heavenly Father, cause us
to simply walk in this world by faith in who he is and what
he has done and what you have promised. Until one day, Heavenly
Father, we walk out of this world and into your glorious presence
with our lives hidden in your dear and precious Son, who even
at this very moment lives to intercede for us and declares
that we are seated with Him in heavenly glory. Oh, our father,
we pray that you might cause your son to be lifted up high
amongst us and we might see him as faithful and know that it
is done forever, finished and complete. Bless your word, heavenly
father, to the hearts of your people and comfort those among
us who are ailing, our father. Bless us for Christ's sake, we
pray in his name. Amen.