What a remarkable passage of
scripture 2 Corinthians is. Chapter 3 is a passage of scripture
that is worthy of close study, profitable to us. I love the
fact that there is this remaining. That which remains, remains right
now, is glorious. And what a great promise in verse
18, that we all, with open faith, beholding as in a glass the glory
of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to
glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. We wait again and
again, brothers and sisters, on the Spirit of the Lord to
lead us and to guide us and to be our teacher. Lisa and I went
to a funeral on Friday. It was the first secular funeral
I think I have ever been to. Not one single mention of anything
to do with Christianity, not even any mention of life beyond
this world. In fact, the celebrant fellow
said that Mother Nature He's come from Mother Nature, this
fellow had died and he'd gone back to Mother Nature, and he's
made a remarkable statement, and he said, there are no words
of comfort. At least he was honest. He said
there are no words of comfort. My brothers and sisters, we come
and are gathered together because there are words of comfort. There are words from our God,
words from above, words from heaven, words of promise, words
of eternal life. He has the words of eternal life,
our great God. And in His mercy to His chosen
ones, they will cry out as the apostles did, by the sea of Galilee,
where else can we go? You alone have the words of eternal
life. It's a wonderful thing to think
that the Lord has His people. He, in sovereign mercy, makes
them. It's interesting, Norm read there,
that He has made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of
the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter kills and the
Spirit, but the Spirit gives life. That word made is one of
those glorious words that's used in exactly the same sense in
a way in Colossians 1.12. It says we give thanks unto the
Father who has made us, has made us meet. to be partakers of the
inheritance of the saints in light." He's made us. It's a creationism. He's made
us perfect. He's made us fit. We are perfectly
fitted by our God to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
in light. Speaking of inheritance, I want
to turn us back to Galatians Chapter 5. We won't spend a lot of our time
in Galatians 5 today, but I want us to ponder closely and carefully
what's going on in terms of where this letter has led us thus far,
and what is laid before us in these verses here. I'll just
read them and then we'll look at them briefly, but I wanted
to spend the bulk of my time just looking at the difference
between the Gospel of works and the Gospel of grace. What it
is to be a believer in the Gospel of works and what it is to be
a believer in the Gospel of grace. Now the works of the flesh are
manifest, they're openly seen by all in this world, which are
these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath,
strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness,
revelings, and such like, of which I tell you before, as I
have told you in time past, that they which do such things, they
which practice them in an ongoing way, shall not inherit the kingdom
of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.
Meet this temperance. Against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have
crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live
in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be
desirous of vain glory, provoking one another and envying one another."
I think the thing that's remarkable In the book of Galatians, if
you take your mind back to the time when this letter arrived,
there it was a scroll and it was unrolled. and it was read
before the church and it was signed, as we'll see at the end
of Galatians 6, it was signed by Paul's hand as if that was
the stamp of approval. This was really his. And the
reason he had to do it, as we saw in 2 Thessalonians, that
such was the deception and such was the subtlety of the opposition
to him, people were presenting to churches letters which were
forgeries. They were claimed to have been
written by Paul, claimed to have apostolic authority. And what's
laid out, what was laid out before the Galatian Church and is laid
out before believers throughout time is a situation which is
now laid out before us again and again. You have to remember
that when this letter was read to the church, the people that
Paul was accusing of being false teachers and being accursed by
God were there in the congregation. and they were there leading it. And it's very interesting to
ponder that Paul actually writes his letter, God the Holy Spirit
writes and sends these letters, he sends them to individuals. He sends them to individuals. that God might, as we read in
1 Chronicles, God might prepare your hearts individually to seek
the Lord. So here you have, sitting in
the congregation, and Paul, who they had borne witness to, you
had two men who looked very similar in so many ways, didn't they?
They were both moral men. You couldn't get to be a preacher
in a pulpit that Paul had vacated without having a morality that
was very similar to him. They were both extraordinarily
religious men. They were both zealous men. They weren't Christians in name
only. They were Christians who went
out of their way to proselytise, to evangelise. They were both
extraordinarily knowledgeable in the Scriptures. They would
have astounded us at their knowledge of Scriptures. I have to turn
in the Scriptures to find a passage like 1 Corinthians. They could have quoted it, brothers
and sisters. It's remarkable, isn't it? It's
amazing how we have moved. To be a minister in the Church
of England just 150 years ago or so in England, you had to
be able to recite perfectly all the Psalms. Perfectly. No mistakes whatsoever. All of
them. Every single one. It was one
of the tests for being The reality is that despite all of that,
despite all of that knowledge, the Galatian Church were faced
with an extraordinary situation. One of these moral, religious,
zealous men was cursed of God and on his way to hell. And the other one was blessed
of God and on his way to heaven. And the situation that lay before
the Galatians was an incredibly serious situation. Who do you
follow? Paul's not even here. Do you
follow this man? or do you follow Paul? And the
thing that's remarkable, I'd like us to ponder it and I'd
like you to, the Lord would allow you to think much on it over
this next little while as we go and look at this passage in
detail, is finally, Paul has finally, as it were, having undone
the case of the legalists, he finally writes these words which
would have been remarkable. Imagine what the self-righteous
moral, religious, zealous, legalist thought when this was read out,
would he not say, as the list was read, adultery, fornication,
would he not have said, I have done none of those things? He
would have said it, wouldn't he? Uncleanness, I've never been
unclean. Idolatry, I've never practised
idolatry. Witchcraft, I've never practised
witchcraft. Emulations, rites, traditions,
emory, murders, I've never murdered anyone. The self-righteous religious
man would have said, I have not done those things
and I'm not doing it and the reason, the reason the world
does these things and the reason I don't do them is because I
have the law. It's almost, remarkably, it's
almost as if Paul is allowing his whole case to be undone. And yet that's not the case at
all. The self-righteous religionist
says, I've kept them. I've kept these things and I'm
going to keep others from embarking on these paths of wickedness. I'm going to inherit the Kingdom
of God because by going back to the law and leading others
back to the law, we will not do those things. I keep the law, you need the
law, you need the law as a guide and without them, without those
things, just look what happens in the world around us that doesn't
have the law of God. Look at the wickedness that goes
on and the idolatry that goes on and without the law of God. This is what lies before this
world. We keep ourselves pure. We keep
ourselves religious. We keep ourselves moral because
we keep the law. It is my guide. It is my guide,
they would say. What does the believer say? What
does the believer say when confronted with the law of God? The believer, energized by the
Spirit of God, looks at those lists of sins and says, that's
me, I've done it. God says in the Lord, doesn't
he? He says, you will have no other gods before me. You will have no false views
of God. you will have a God who is exactly
in accord with the goal of the scriptures. Idolatry. Idolatry is worshipping any other
God, or it's even worshipping the true God in a false way. The believer says in his heart,
I've had so many false views of God. The believer has a heart
that's been humbled, humbled by God himself. What hope for
me is there to inherit eternal life when I have envied, I've
been involved in revelings, I've been involved in heresies. The believer says, this is my
sinful heart of flesh laid bare and exposed. The believer turns
away from looking at his flesh and he says, I thank God. through the Lord Jesus Christ,
that He, alone and unable, suffered the full penalty for me breaking
all of these. And His righteousness and His
obedience is my only hope before God, and His sin-bearing death
is the only hope I have. Not me and my law works. I have no righteousness. My righteousness
is exposed. The believer says, I am just dependent upon God. I love that hymn, Jesus, lover
of my soul. Let me to thy bosom fly. While the nearer waters roll,
while the tempest still is high, Hide me, O my Saviour, hide,
till the storm of life is past, Safe into the haven guide, O
receive my soul at last. Other refuge have I none, hangs
my helpless soul on Thee. Leave, O leave me not alone,
still support and comfort me. All my trust on Thee is stayed,
all my help from Thee I bring. Cover my defenceless head with
the shadow of Thy wing. Wilt Thou not regard my call? Wilt Thou not accept my prayer?
Lo, I sink, I faint, I fall. Lo, on Thee I cast my care. Reach me out Thy gracious hand,
while I of Thy strength receive. Hoping and against hope I stand,
dying and behold I live. Thou, O Christ, art all I want,
More than all in Thee I find. Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
Heal the sick and lead the blind. Just and holy is Thy Name, Source
of all true righteousness. Thou art evermore the same, Thou
art full of truth and grace. Plenteous grace with Thee is
found, grace to cover all my sin. Let the healing streams
abound, make and keep me pure within. Thou of life the fountain
art, freely let me take of Thee. Spring Thou up within my heart,
rise to all eternity. Other refuge have I none, hangs
my helpless soul on thee." The legalist and the works righteous
person would be able to say, well look at the things I have
done. And that's what they come to us again and again with. The
saved sinner, the saved sinner, the believing sinner looks away
from himself. and is caused by the light of
the glory of God shining upon his word and shining upon our
hearts to turn away from ourselves and our works and look to him
alone. There is a contrast, isn't there?
There is a stark contrast. I suppose again and again we
want to lay before you, the Lord willing, the subtlety, the subtlety
of the differences, but again and again we want to lay before
you the seriousness of the differences. They are huge and they are eternal. I often ponder that Satan masquerades
as an angel of light and these false teachers came to Galatia
as angels of light. The word angel means messenger.
They had light, didn't they? They said that they were the
genuine believers and Paul was leading people into licentiousness
because he wasn't putting them back under the law. And someone to masquerade is
to wear a mask, isn't it? That's what the word hypocrite
is, that you have a mask on. And in the preaching of the Gospel,
we hope again and again to expose and to take that mask off and
to reveal what really lies behind, what really is there. The word
hypocrite is the word that means to wear a mask. That's what to
be an actor on a stage was. Someone who looks like they're
something, and in fact they're not. It's interesting, I often
try and think of stories to try and sort of bring this out to
bear, but I keep thinking of the reality is the closer we
know someone, the more clearly we define them. And the more
we love someone, the more passionate we are about that definition
being accurate and true. I can't think of any analogies
that are very good, but imagine, for example, that someone that
I knew reasonably well turned up here and they claimed someone
else claimed to be that person. So for example, imagine someone
turned up here and said that I'm Todd Nibbett and you hadn't
seen his picture. But I knew him. I knew Todd Nibbett. I've stayed in his house and
I've spent lots of time of sweet fellowship with him. But imagine
someone came all the way from America here and I wasn't around
and they said, I'm Todd Nibbett. and they seem to be incredibly
impressive and they seem to have a great knowledge of scriptures
and you let them into the pulpit. How do you know? How do you define
the real one? The same applies to the Lord
Jesus. How do you define the real Jesus against the false
Jesus? How do you define the real God
against the false God? And of course what happens is
that as the person is exposed, more and more of his character
and more and more of his person is exposed. And the more he's
exposed, the more clearly you see, the more clearly people
who know him would see that it's the wrong one, isn't it? Someone
might bear his name, but he may not have the same attributes. They might come and say, I'm
Todd Nybert and I've got a family of five kids and I live in a
place in Virginia. Or they might say, I'm Todd Nybert
and I've had these situations in my life. But people who know
him say, that's not true. And that's what happens, I think,
with Christians, isn't it? We say, when people are describing
our Lord Jesus, we who know Him say, that's just not true, that's
not true, that's not an accurate description of His character.
And those who know Him and love Him find it repulsive when the
Lord Jesus is besmirched before this world by religious people
who claim to know Him. And yet they reveal by what they
say about him that they haven't met him at all. Paul had met
him. Paul had been dragged out of
that religious world because he had met him. No one read it. Very important passage, isn't
it, in 2 Corinthians 3. But Paul said he was made, he
was made a minister. He was made. God's children are
dragged like Paul out of the situation that they're in, out
of the religion that they're in, and they are made. And God's
servants are taken and they're made. I love Amos' description
of himself. You don't have to turn there,
but in Amos 7, verse 14, Amos is told not to speak any longer. and not to speak against the
idolatry of the northern tribes of Israel, then Amos answered
and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet. I had no religious background. Neither was I a prophet's son.
I had no religious heritage at all. But I was a herdsman. He was just a sheep farmer and
a gatherer of sycamore fruit. And the Lord's servants have
this description of them always. And the Lord took me. The Lord
took me as I followed the flock. And the Lord said to me, go prophesy
unto my people Israel. So that's exactly what happened
to Paul, wasn't it? The Lord took him. He was on
his way to Damascus. He was one of these legalists
that we read about. The Lord took him. The Lord took
him. And the Lord made him his servant. And all of the Lord's servants
preach the same message. They preach the same message
while ever this world has been turning with men on it. They
preach the same message. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It's an offence. It's an offensive
message to Jews and Greeks. It's an offensive message to
all men. Man, in his state of fallenness in
Adam, is insatiably proud. and insatiably impossible to
teach until the Lord comes. I love what Hosea 23.9 says,
the Lord of hosts has purposed it. He's purposed the destruction
of this city Tyre which symbolises the pride of humanity. and its
wealth and its success in this world, the Lord has purposed
it to stain the pride of all glory and to bring into contempt
all the honourable of the earth. Salvation and eternal life is
just, ultimately and always only the gift of God. It's always
a grace gift. It always has its source in heaven. It always works its work in the
hearts of people. So as Paul wrote that letter
to the Galatians, and there they were with the false teachers
in that church, saying, well, we've done all these things,
we've done all these things, there would have been amongst
those people, there would have been the Lord's children. And the Lord would have used
this letter to draw them back to himself, to see that their
works of righteousness were but filthy rags, and that the Lord
Jesus again is all and in all. And like many of us here, as
we were taken out and rescued out of that and found that there
was this glorious liberty in Christ, we would have seen how
much we were entangled in it, how much we would have found
our confidence in that religion, that confidence in our works. There is a passage that I'd like
us to spend a little bit of time looking at in light of what I've
just said. In Acts 24, verse 14, Paul gives
a description of himself. It's a verse that I've thought
about often for a long time. As you know, in Acts, wherever
Paul went, There was either revival or rebellion. He was pursued
like a dog through those countries. He was, wherever the Gospel came,
there was opposition to the Gospel. And they pursued him again and
again and they sought to kill him, and they nearly did on several
occasions. But he's giving his defence before
Felix. and I won't have time to read
all of it, but in verse 14, he says, Acts 24 verse 14, he
says, that this I confess unto thee. This is his confession
to those who were accusing him, that after the way which they
call heresy, So worship I the God of my fathers, believing
all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets."
It's a remarkable verse of scripture, isn't it? after the way they
call heresy." So these false teachers, as that letter was
read out in that church, would have again said, Paul's a heretic.
Paul's a heretic. We are the true believers. After
the way which they call heresy. The reality is that there is,
wherever grace is preached, wherever Christ is held up, there is going
to be opposition. There always has been and there
always will be. It happened in the very first
church service outside of the garden. Cain brought the works
of his hand. Abel brought that which represented
the sacrifice that was pleasing to God. And as you know from
Genesis 4, even the very word of God spoken to Cain had no
impact on him at all. The very words of warning had
no impact on him, even coming from God himself. such is the
state of humanity and such is the depths of the depravity of
man, that unless God not just speaks, but God moves the hearts
of people, they will stay in their ways and stay in their
works of religion. In Romans 11.6 he talks about
salvation. He says in verse 5, even so then
at the present time there is a remnant according to the election
of grace, Romans 11, 5. According to the election of
grace. What a great description of God's
children. Elect, elected by grace. Grace, grace elects grace and
if by grace 6. Then it is no more of works,
otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it
is no more grace, otherwise work is no more work. The reality
is that God's salvation is entirely of grace or it is entirely of
works. When we go back to that passage
in Galatians 5, the self-righteous legalist would say, well, there
you are. I've gone back to the law and I've held my body in
check. And Romans 6 is saying, if it's
by grace, then it's no more of works at all. There are huge
differences, aren't there? There are the most extraordinary
differences. In Galatians 5 there is the difference
between heaven and hell. between works and grace. And the difficulty is, of course,
for people involved in any sort of Christianity at all, is that
they use the same words. They use all of the words that
God's people use. They use redemption and they
use justification. They talk about the blood of
Christ. They talk about God. These little signs that they
put all around this room here saying, God bless you. I don't want to be blessed by
that God, thank you very much. The God they represent blesses
no one. The God that they talk about
captivates all who fall under his spell. You see the reality is that if
you believe that any aspect of your salvation is dependent upon
your works, And we talk about it all the time. If you believe
that you begin by a decision that you've made in response
to a God who loves everyone and a Jesus who's died for everyone,
and that you have somehow the power to accept Him into your
heart, that you in some way join hands with God in some sort of
cooperative effort to save Him, to save yourself, if you begin
That way you are a believer in works. If you believe that you
grow by use of your means, if you believe that you grow by
going back to the law, by going back and being more studious
in all sorts of religious activities, you go back and you grow because
you become better and better at putting down the sins of your
flesh and that somehow you become just a little more holy. You'd
only speak of it in very measured terms, but somehow you've made
yourself just a little bit purer than those sinners around you
by your activities. You believe in works, and if
you believe eventually that somehow you're going to be rewarded in
heaven with some extra crown or some special place, It doesn't
matter whether it's at the beginning of salvation or during your walk
in this world or even at the end. If you believe that somehow
you're improved, your standing is improved because of what you
do, you are no longer believing in grace. You are believing in
works. And the differences are huge
and they are profound. Ultimately, if you have a God
who accepts your works on the basis of something that you have
done, you have a different God. You have a different God. A holy God cannot accept anything
you do. A holy God is not moved by the
things you do. The God of the Scriptures is
sovereign. He's absolutely sovereign. The God of works religion is
a God that wants to save everybody. The God who tries. He will not
fail. He will not be discouraged. I love what Todd Nybert says.
He says it again and again. He says, you cannot worship. You cannot worship a God who
is not absolutely sovereign. You cannot worship a God in whose
hand you are. You cannot worship that God. He's a sovereign God. His will
must be done. His will, or will always, will
be done. So you not only have a different
God, a God who somehow can be manipulated by men, you have
a God You have a God who cannot save
at all. If He requires something of me
then He cannot save me. is eternal. Salvation is something
that God must do. And salvation is something that
God must do in a way that reveals all of His character. And He's
not going to change His character in anything He does. He's a sovereign
God. He's a sovereign God. The difference
between grace and works, to go back to our words in Acts 24
verse 14, it's the way that they call heresy, so worship I the
God of my fathers. See, grace believers have been
moved by God to believe all things written in the law and the prophets. They just believe them. We don't
argue with them, we don't allow people to say, well that's just
your interpretation. I see that differently. At the
end of the day, God's word is clear, God's word is immutable,
God's word stands gloriously complete and believers believe. It's as simple as that. They
just believe what is written. They believe what is written
about the way God sows people. They believe what is written
about the character of God and they are not embarrassed or ashamed
by Him revealing his character. I was talking to Norm earlier
and one of the reasons that people modify the love of God and make
this love which is particular and special and extraordinarily
efficacious in the lives of His people, they make it so broad
that He loves everyone and He can't save anyone. What they
want to do is to change the character of God so that he's no longer
offensive, he's no longer a holy God, no longer a God who in justice
and holy justice must punish sin. A holy God who will not
be manipulated, a holy God who has no reason to change his character. That sort of God can be worshipped. See, every believer just believes
what's in God's words. And every believer, according
to Acts 24, as Paul does, they worship God. They worship Him. You see, the works believer has
a different worship altogether. God's children worship God who,
as I said before, holds us in His hands, and He does in this
creation as He pleases, and it's always right, it's always just,
it's always holy. God's children realise that if
God sends me to hell, He will be holy and just and perfectly
righteous in doing so. And if God takes me to heaven,
has mercy on me and saves me by His grace, His character remains
exactly the same. Holy and just is His name. God's people, believers, grace
believers, to go back to Acts 24.14, this I confess unto thee,
that after the way, God's people, gross believers, have a way. Works believers have a different
way. Christianity was called in the
early days, it was called the way. 2 Peter describes it as
the way of truth and the way of righteousness. See, Christ
simply is the way. There is no other way to the
Father but in Him. We must come to the Father. No
one comes to the Father but by me. There is no other name. There was just one ark. And those
who were in the Ark which represented the Lord Jesus Christ in so many
ways, those that were shut in the Ark by God, were saved. There is just one altar, there
is one altar, and wonderfully it's the altar that sanctifies
the gift. There was just one way through
the Red Sea. There is just one mediator between
God and man, the man Christ Jesus. See, the way is the way of that
eternal union. It is, as Norm read out to us
in 2 Corinthians, it is that eternal covenant. That eternal
covenant secures all of God's people. puts them in the Lord
Jesus Christ from before the foundation world, they are in
the way. And even in the depths of their
rebellion, even in the depths of their self-righteous religious
rebellion, they are always in His way. His hand is upon His
children. His eyes are jealously guarding
over them. He'll hedge their way with thorns. He'll hedge them in difficult
ways, as we've read in Ruth, but He'll hedge them back to
the house of bread. He'll hedge them to the feet
of the kinsman redeemer and they'll find themselves delightfully
married to Him. And when He presents Himself
to the Father, He presents us in Him. We are seated now with
Him in heavenly places. Those who believe in work salvation,
any form of legalism whatsoever, have a different way. They have
a different way and they find, as Paul did, they find the way
of God's people, a way that is offensive to them. Of course
there is just a huge difference in the content of the message.
The grace and works believers have a different message. They
have a different message about what happened in eternity. Ask
someone in religion about the terms of the eternal covenant. What happened in eternity? What
was the eternal covenant? Who were the parties to it and
what did they agree? And you will find from the answer
to that question, whether they have been taught of God's servants. You see, we read it, no one read
it, who has made us ministers of the New Testament, not of
the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter killeth but the
Spirit gives life. Christian life, eternal life,
is caught up in this eternal covenant. We find it delightful
that God elected a people from eternity and He put them in His
Son. Works believers all over this
world are saying that God has a plan. The scriptures never
talk about God having a plan, they always talk about God having
a purpose. They talk about God making a provision, a provision
that's open if you do this and you do that. The God's grace
believers believe that salvation was accomplished in eternity. And because of God's works in
eternity, the things that happen in this world now are but the
unfolding of what happened in eternity. Isn't it lovely how
2 Timothy 1 verse 9 says, Who has saved us and called us with
a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began." In our verse in Galatians, the legalists
in that room, both teachers and those who'd followed them, would
have seen that list and said, well, I haven't done those things,
and I am righteous because I have kept myself away from those things. The saved person is just amazed
at grace. They're astounded by the grace
of God. What a remarkable way the Holy
Spirit has penned those words. See, in verse 9, 2 Timothy, it
says, He saved us and He called us. So which came first? The
saving comes first. And because He saves, He called
us with a holy calling. We are saved from the foundation
of the world. The great comfort for God's children,
whether they are Galatians or today, when they read that list
of sins and say, well, there I am, there I am, yet again without
one work of righteousness whatsoever. I find it delightful that if
we were saved in eternity, then my works have nothing to do with
salvation. We are saved by God. That's gospel
to someone who has been quickened by the Holy Spirit. There's a
content to the message, isn't there? There's a complete difference
about what happened in eternity. There's a complete difference
about what happened in the garden. If you somehow can activate your
will to make yourself cooperate with God, Man, if you believe that man
just needs some help, some assistance, he needs just another chance,
another opportunity, then that's believing in works. What's the
scripture say? We died. We died in Adam. Spiritually dead. Cain is an
example of what spiritual death is. God speaks in warning to
him. directly in warning to him and
he goes on his own path. In Adam all died. So the only
way to save a dead person is to give them new life. You don't
save a dead person by going along and tickling them. The only way
they'll live if they're given new life. There is no other way. The works believer has a different
view of what happened on Calvary's tree, what happened to our Lord
Jesus Christ. We just love to declare what
he declared himself. It is finished. It is finished. And I read that verse out of
Colossians again and again. He's made us, hasn't he? He's
made us holy, unblameable, and unapprovable. He's made his people,
all his people, all of them, at that one time are made manifestly
to be holy and unblameable. All that God requires of me,
He looks to His Son for. And to go back to where Galatians
has led us so often, there is a huge difference about what
happens in a sinner's heart when God saves him. The works believer
believes that by grace somehow they have been changed and then
by their works they become more and more holy and less and less
sinful. Not one grace believer believes
that at all. We are painfully and shamefully
and sadly aware of the fact that our old man is there, just as
he was before. An old man is just the same. But remarkably, in the grace
of God, there is in the hearts of believers, there is a life
in a dead believer There is a new life that was never there before.
It's called a new heart, a new man, a new nature. And only those
with the new nature will see the old man as it is. So it's not a change. It's not a change that religion
brings. It's a new creation. And there is a different place
where grace and works believers find their glory. In works religion,
man gets some of the glory. As those men in that church in
Galatia read that list, they would have said, well, here I
am. Look at me. I'm not an idolater. I haven't
been involved in witchcraft. I haven't done it. Like the man,
the Pharisee who went up to the temple. He prayed with himself
and he boasted to God of how good he was. The Grace Believer,
for the Grace Believer God, gets all the glory all the time and
we like it that way. The works believer glories in
appearance and the grace believer glories in what's in the heart. There is just a new creation
and only the new creation, only God working in the hearts of
His people will cause them not just to see the difference, but
to see the difference between those who teach it. and they
will be drawn to the one and repulsed by the other. The religion
of this world drives God's people out of it because it offends
their God, it offends their Saviour. I pray that the Lord would prepare
our hearts to seek Him. The Lord might prepare our hearts
that we might be not made captive, because we are God's children,
are aware of the weaknesses of our flesh, and we are aware of
our failings, and we delight in a sovereign and a gracious
Saviour. and we longed to just keep looking
to Him. As Norm read, but we with open
face, beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord. That's
what preaching the gospel is about, isn't it? It's declaring
the glory of the Lord. And then the glory of the Lord,
beholding the glory of the Lord, we are changed. We are changed
by Him. Rather than looking back to our
flesh and our activities, we look again to Him. Look to a crucified Saviour. Look to a risen Saviour. Look to a reigning Saviour. Look to a holy Saviour. Look
to a returning Saviour. Look to Him. Let's pray.