We turn in your scriptures to
Galatians chapter 5. Paul comes to this place and
he says, therefore, he says, stand fast, therefore, in the
liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled
again with the yoke of bondage." Therefore, is Paul gathering
together all that he's written in those four chapters. He's
gathering it together and here we have another extraordinary
summary statement of what this letter is about. how incredibly
significant it is for the children of God to find the Lord Jesus
their all in all. Him and nothing else. As I read from that note from
Augustus Toplady, There is just one key that gets into heaven. When Adam and Eve were cast out
of that garden, there were the cherubim put outside the garden
with flaming swords to guard the way to the tree of life. You cannot get there by anything
you do, ever. It must be a work of grace. It must be a work in which our
triune God is honoured completely. Paul goes on in verse 2. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you,
if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. And in verse 3, it's so clear,
isn't it? Behold, I, Paul, saying if you
be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing. So people would
say that circumcision is just part of that law. But Paul goes on in the next
verse to make it abundantly clear that it's not just circumcision. The law is whole, the law is
one, the law is a package. For I testify again to every
man that is circumcised that he is a debtor, to do the whole
law. First of all, Christ is become
of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law,
you have fallen from grace. For we, through the Spirit, wait
for the hope of righteousness by faith. Such significant verses,
let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, it's a shocking
thing to think that there are multitudes in religion in the
days of our Lord Jesus, in the days of His apostles, and in
the two thousand years that have led us to this place, this point
in time, Heavenly Father. for whom Christ shall profit
them nothing. O our Father, we pray that you
would be our teacher, as you have promised, that you would
guide and lead us into the truth, into He, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is the truth. And by your grace in our lives,
Heavenly Father, we might know something again this morning
of the glorious liberty of the children of God. Protect us,
Heavenly Father, from falling into the trap which multitudes
around us and before us have fallen into. in the light of these things
utterly and totally dependent upon you. We pray for your blessing
and your guidance upon us, Heavenly Father, and make your words powerful
and effective and real in our lives this morning. For Jesus'
sake and in his name we pray, our Father. Amen. It's interesting to sometimes
look at the Greek New Testaments. Most of you have been given interlinear
Greek New Testaments and I love the structure of this sentence
in the original. It says, the liberty of us, Christ
has made us free. The liberty that we have that
Christ has made us free. He has actually set us free.
Notice it's made us free. It's not something that's done
by us ourselves. The liberty of us, the liberty
of the children of God, the liberty of Paul and the brethren with
him, the liberty of us, Christ has made us free. Stand fast. Stand fast. Don't waver. Guard your spiritual freedom. Guard your spiritual privileges
as the children of God, the blood-bought children of God. Guard it. As the proverb says, buy the
truth and sell it not. in Acts the church was encouraged
with purpose of heart that they would cleave, that they would
cleave, that they would bind themselves to the Lord. So the encouragement here is
to stand fast and to get some idea of what that stand fast
means. One of the first uses of that word, and I know that
Paul had thought and had this verse in mind. The first time
this word, to my understanding, is used in the Old Testament
is in Exodus chapter 14. The children of God are at the
Red Sea. Death is behind them in the form
of the greatest superpower on that world's army. All of his
chariots, all of his soldiers, Pharaoh himself, all of that
army. Behind them is death. In front
of them is miles of sea and they can't swim. Behind them is death. In front of them is trial and
trouble and death. Moses said unto the people, Fear
ye not. Stand still. The same word. Stand
still. and see the salvation of the
Lord, which He will show you today. For the Egyptians, whom
you have seen today, you shall see them again no more for ever. Verse 14. The Lord shall fight for you,
and you shall find your peace. Stand fast, don't waver, stand
fast and not again be yoked in the slavery, entangled. To be yoked is to be ensnared
by a trap, ensnared by a trap. Paul has gone to great lengths
to show us two vitally important things, hasn't he? He's gone
to great lengths under the guidance of the Holy Spirit with this
church that he can't speak to in person, but he's gone to great
lengths to show them two things, hasn't he? Salvation is by pure
and sovereign grace alone. And if anyone is silly enough
to think that they can mix something with it of their own works, they know nothing. They know
nothing of the character of God and His holiness. They know nothing
Despite all that they might claim, they know nothing of that extraordinary
transaction that happened on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's why Paul writes these
serious, serious words. Christ shall profit you nothing. There is a glorious liberty of
the children of God. There is a release of being set
free It's a set free from sin. It's not from indwelling sin,
but there's a setting free by the Lord Jesus from the dominion
and guilt and the damning power of sin. Sin that's in us and
sin that is part of us. As he says in Galatians 1.4,
he gave himself for our sins, on behalf of our sins, that he
might deliver us from this present evil world. There is a liberty
from this present evil world, a liberty and a deliverance from
captivity and from the tyranny of Satan, not from his temptations
and his insults, but from him and he who rules this world. under the sovereign hand of God.
There is a liberty, isn't there? There's a liberty of the children
of God. And of course there is a liberty.
There is a liberty from the law. And I had in my notes something
which I think is ultimately profoundly unhelpful, because again and
again and again the commentators And well-meaning, gracious people
like to divide the law up and they want to talk about the ceremonial
law, that handwriting of ordinances that was against us. The people
who are captive to it or who desire to be under it are under
the rigid and severe schoolmaster. And then people talk about the
moral law. We're free from the curse and condemnation of the
moral law and its demands and bondage and its calls for absolute
perfection all the time. And then there is the particular
judicial law for the Jews that we've just read, haven't we?
In verse 3 of chapter 5, I testify again to every man that is circumcised,
you just embark on one part of the law You are a debtor to do
all of it. Cursed, Galatians 3.10. For as many are as of the works
of the law are under a curse, for it is written, Cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. Cursed is everyone who
doesn't continue to have done them. You have to look back on
your life. and say, I have done them to
the perfect standard of God. But the law, as I said earlier,
is one. You submit yourself to circumcision
or submit yourself to tithing, you are obligated to all of it. Isn't that what James says? Whosoever
shall keep the whole law, yet offend in one point, is guilty
of all. The pulse is... As he says in so many other places
throughout his letters, he says it in 1 Corinthians 16, Philippians
1.27, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, Romans 14, he keeps saying the
same thing again and again to his people. You've heard the
Gospel, the Gospel has had its impact on your life, stand fast
in the Gospel, stand fast. Romans 14.4, is able to make
him stand. As I said, the therefore is a
conclusion, isn't it? Paul is actually drawing his
thoughts in these four chapters together under a therefore. It's
on the basis of all that was said before. To be under the
law to any degree is to say that the Lord Jesus Christ at that
point and under that part of your life is not necessary for
me. It's an extraordinary thing,
isn't it? We'll look at Romans 10 in a little while, but the
people who want to be under the law, they will not. They will
not. They are ignorant of God's righteousness,
completely ignorant that God demands one thing from all of
Adam's fallen race. He has a simple, simple demand,
absolute perfect holiness. That's his demand, that's his
requirement for getting into heaven. You must be as holy as
God. For those who want to talk works
and nearly always their sentences begin, but you must. It's all
very well for you to talk about grace. It's all very well for
you to talk about the eternal covenant. They nearly always
begin the next sentence, but you must. I don't know how many
times I've heard the but you must. It's all very well. It's
all very well for God to have done all that, but here we are,
you must. Well, my question to them is,
how much work? How much work is required and
of what quality? We've just read Psalm 119 last
week. Anyone dare put their hand up
to one, to one of those glorious, glorious statements? Let's go back and follow Paul. not exhaustively, but in some
of what he says. To go back to the law at any
point and in any way and to any extent, in chapter 1 verse 6,
is to be removed. You're removed from Him that
called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel. Verse 8 and 9, those who preach
it are accursed. And the Lord Jesus says, the
blind follow the blind. They leave the blind and they
both fall into the ditch. Over in chapter 2, verse 16,
they are not justified. In the courts of heaven they
are not declared innocent and free. Verse 19, they do not live
for God. Well, through the Lord, I am
dead to the Lord, that I might live unto God. If you're alive
to the Lord, you cannot be living unto God. Verse 20, those, they're
not crucified with Christ. They're not living by the faith
of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Verse
21, they are frustrating the grace of God. And Christ's death
for them is vain. Christ's death for them is an
empty sin. Chapter 3, verse 1, they are
disobedient to the truth. Verse 2 of chapter 3, they don't
have the Spirit's ministering to them. They don't have Abraham
as a father. And verse 9, they don't have
the blessing of faithful Abraham. Verse 17, the blessings and promises
of the New Covenant are not theirs. Verse 27, I mean, they're still
under that Pythagoras. Verse 27, I haven't put on Christ. They do not They do not belong
to him. They are not adopted. They are again under the bondage
of weak and beggarly elements, and Paul, God's apostle, has
become an enemy to them. He who is their friend has become
an enemy to them. They're no longer able to speak
of the blessedness. They're back under law. They're
no longer able to boast of the blessedness they have as the
children of God. Verse 21, they do not hear the
law. They do not hear the word of
God. They're not. They're not, at
that point, brethren with Paul. They're not brethren with Paul
and all who are with Paul. And they are. They are as they go back under
the law and turn Paul into an enemy and turn from the grace
of God. They are and they have joined
those who persecute the Apostle. They don't persecute Him alone,
they persecute the One who sent Him. There is peace. There is peace
and liberty. It's blood-bought peace for the
whole church. He's redeemed them from the curse
of the law. And he redeemed them from the
curse of the law by being made a curse for them. There is, there
is for the Christian, there is for the believer a glorious freedom,
isn't there? In Romans 8 it says, the law
of the Spirit of life, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ
Jesus hath made every child of God free from the law of sin
and death. And for what the law could not
do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own
Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned
sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law, the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the
flesh, walk not after fleshly doings and fleshly activities,
walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Free, liberty, freedom, release. As free indeed is every child
of God as their Saviour is." We are as free as He is, aren't
we? We're free. He is now free from
this world and He's free from its trials. He's conquered its
prince. And every demand of the law has
been met perfectly. holy, holy obedience of heart,
soul, mind and body. But he's done it all, not just
before men, he did it in the sight of God. He said in the
Sermon on the Mount, he says, unless your righteousness exceeds
the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you'll no wise
enter into the Kingdom of God. Because he's talking about a
righteousness that is much more, the righteousness of God is much
more than fleshly righteousness. And in Matthew 5 what he does
in his expounding of the law, he just raises the bar of the
law. He raises the bar of the law
to where God is satisfied. And it requires holiness in thought. holiness in your thoughts. It
is remarkable, isn't it? You look upon a woman lustfully
and you've committed adultery. You have enmity in your heart
and you have murdered. The law is holy. The law is spiritual. There's only one person whose
righteousness ever exceeded the righteousness of the scribes
and Pharisees, and that was our dear, dear, dear Saviour. What extraordinary, extraordinary
work He did. born as a woman. He was tempted
in every way as we are. He suffered all the trials that
we suffer. There's not a single person on
this world that can say the Lord Jesus doesn't know how I feel. He suffered, brothers and sisters,
and he was tempted. And he, in all of those trials,
in all of those tears, in all of that heartache, never ever once committed a single
sin. Perfectly holy. As Graham read
to us out of Hebrews 10, the body was prepared for him and
he kept saying to me, I come to do thy will, oh my God. The only man who ever did. And he didn't do it ever alone. He always did it. Everything
he did, he did on behalf of his people. Everything he suffered,
he suffered on behalf of his people. The glorious, glorious
gospel is a gospel of perfect and absolute and complete substitution. So 2 Corinthians 3, 17 can say,
where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And in the context of 2 Corinthians
3, he's going on to talk about the law. and what a bondage it
is to be under it to any extent whatsoever. So the essence and
the heart of Galatians, isn't it, the essence of what he's
saying, the essence of what drives Paul, is that he's met the Redeemer. He met the Redeemer as one of
those Pharisees who sought sought his own righteousness and thought
himself righteousness and the world, the religious world of
Jerusalem applauded him. He was the star pupil in that
school. He thought he was doing God's
service. He thought he was honouring God
until he met the Saviour. What a horrifying moment it must
have been when he first met him. What a remarkable moment it must
have been when he met him and knew that he hadn't been sent
immediately to hell. What freedom, what extraordinary
freedom Paul must have felt. In those weeks and months that
followed, he must have had times of the most extraordinary ecstasy
and the most extraordinary sense, but have been so, so thankful
for sovereign grace. Sovereign grace is how sinners
are saved, a work of God entirely. And all of those sins, all of
those sins of his self-righteousness, God the Father put them on his
son. His son owns them as his own,
all of that wickedness. And there the blessed son of
God, hanging on that tree, covered in the excrement, the spittle
of men, beaten, Unrecognisable. His father's sword raised in
justice to slay him because God, the holy God, found sin on his
son and he punished him. It says in Isaiah 53, it pleased
the father to bruise him. He put him to death. What an extraordinary insult
it is to God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit
to turn around and then say that the pathetic works of the sinful
hands of men have any part, any part in our relationship with
God. There is a glorious liberty that
Paul experienced and now in horror he sees these Galatian friends
of his turning back to almost exactly where he was. There is
liberty, isn't there? There's glorious liberty. There's
liberty from sin. We're freed from sin. God has dealt with it in His
Son perfectly. There is a freedom from righteousness. God has provided and clothed
His people with the very righteousness of God. I don't have any to earn,
I don't have any to polish, I don't have any to defend. My righteousness
sits on the throne of this universe in heaven right now. Liberty from this world. This
world will still draw us with its cords, but there is a liberty
from it. its enticements and its entanglements
and its delights that it throws at us all the time are faded
away by the grace of the Lord Jesus. There's a freedom from
Satan. He'll still buffet. He will still
come and accuse the brethren, but he can only accuse them down
here. He has no access to heaven at
all. There is a freedom from slavery. There's a freedom from doing
any works to please God. God looks to one person, always. He looks to his son, and when
he looks to his son, he smiles. He smiles with a delight. And He looks to everyone who
is one with His Son and He delights in them exactly as He delights
in His Son. There's a freedom, isn't there?
There's a freedom from works and there's a freedom from law
and there's a freedom too, isn't it? There's a liberty too, isn't
there? There's a liberty, as Paul says
in Galatians 2, there's a liberty to live unto God. There's a liberty to live by
the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for
me. There's a liberty, isn't there?
that the children of God enjoy, there's a liberty to live upon
His Word, to go to His Word and find truth and find our Redeemer. And His love and His immutable
sovereign wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption
is made by God to be those things for us. There is the freedom
to live as adopted heirs. Heirs. Access to God. Perfect access right now into
the very throne room of God. In fact, Hebrews said it's a
boldness of access. We go there as blood-bought,
adopted children. There is the freedom to know
that no matter what the accusations of Satan and this world and our
flesh, we have always an advocate for the Father. He ever lives
to intercede for us. He's doing it right now, brothers
and sisters. And what does He intercede with?
He intercedes with those hands that have the nail marks still
in them. He intercedes with that body that was broken for us. There's a liberty, there's a
liberty of the children of God to delight in the character of
God, to delight in God's purposes, to find delight in the provision
of God, to find delight in the power of God, to know that we
are kept, kept and preserved and protected by the power of
God unto salvation. There is a freedom to rest at
the darkest times of life. I read somewhere last week about
an old fellow who was dying and his pastor went to see him and
he said, how are you going? He says, I'm resting very comfortably
on three pillows. I'm resting very comfortably
on the immutable, unchangeable love of God for me in Christ
Jesus. And I'm resting on his immutable
and perfect providence and his perfect wisdom in all things. I'm at rest in him. I'm at rest
in his purposes. I find his character in this
book liberating and delightful and I don't have to argue with
him. I have the liberty of rejoicing
in particular and perfect redemption, I have the liberty of looking
at that eternal covenant, an eternal covenant of grace and
love and peace which perfectly and for all time secured all
of the salvation of all of God's people. It's extraordinary how
religion is entangling, isn't it? It's a trap. The word can
also be used to sort of throw a lasso around someone and drag
them in. So many, so many. that are involved in religion,
in seemingly conservative religion, have no liberty. They have no
liberty to leave behind something which is untrue and to cling
to the truth. If someone comes along and shows
us that we have some Part of doctrine wrong. It's a glorious
liberty, isn't it, to throw out something which is wrong and
hold on to something which is true. A glorious liberty. What an entrapping thing. Paul
is talking about people who were zealous here. They were religiously
zealous. They had a righteousness down
in the Jerusalem church. They had the zeal to go all the
way to Turkey from Jerusalem. And they were lost. They were
lost. Normal. Bear me witness to the
fellow who came down to try and prove to the church that we were
at some time ago that redemption is wide and that everyone is
able to be saved. And the remarkable thing in the
morning service, he made enormous, enormous efforts to actually
put two words in the verse that are not there in the original.
This guy has a PhD. A PhD. So he's done a degree,
he's done a master's degree, he has a PhD in theology. In the time I was studying at
the college in Sydney he came first in all of Australia. First in all of Australia. And
at the same time he was working part-time or full-time as a doctor. He was just renowned for his
brilliance. The NIV version of 1 Peter 3,
18, it says, For Christ also has suffered once for sins, the
just for the unjust that He might bring us to God. And in the NIV,
it is added in there, He died for sins once for all. And in
the morning service, He made great pains to tell everyone
that it's for all, for all, for all, for all, because that was
His purpose in coming down, to establish that it was for all,
for all, for all. And in the evening they had a
meal or something and we sat around the tables and I trust
Norm has my memory of it. If I'm wrong, he might come and
tell me. But anyway, I had my Greek New Testament there that
I was, my interlinear thing that I was using, and I showed him. I passed it across the table
as we were sitting there and I said, those words aren't here,
are they? The for-all words aren't there. And he knew the Greek
word, hapax or something, and we discussed the Greek word and
he acknowledged that the words weren't there. He acknowledged
that they weren't there. They weren't in the text. They
were added into the text and they destroy the meaning of the
text. Ten minutes later he got up. and he was more emphatic in the
evening about saying that it's for all, for all, for all, for
all, having just admitted that it's not there in the text. So
where's the liberty, brothers and sisters? Where's the liberty
in that? Who is he serving there? Who does he think God is? Who does he think, what does
he think this word is? The further you go on in that
religious world, and the more esteemed you are, and the more
honoured you are, the more entrapped you are in it. As Paul grew as
a Pharisee, he didn't have any freedom, he became more and more
entrapped. And such is how they are. Such is how all of us will be
apart from the grace of God. There is a liberty to delight
in the Word of God. There is a glorious liberty of
the saints of God to say this is how His character is revealed,
this is how He saves sinners and I find it delightful. I am
caused to rest and rejoice in the way He saves sinners. I can't
find any peace and I can't find any liberty in this notion of
a God. who tries and fails, who loves
and loses, who dies for their sins and yet they are punished
again for them in hell. I can't find any peace in that.
The only way people find any comfort for themselves in that
is that it looks to their works and they can chase their own
righteousness. May God protect us. May God protect us from religion. May God protect us. Because there's so much, there's
so much in this world that works so assiduously against our freedom. That's why Paul says to stand
fast. There is that freedom, isn't
there? In Hebrews 9.14 there is a freedom from a guilty conscience. What a remarkable thing. Freedom
from a guilty conscience. How much more? See, how do you
get freedom from a guilty conscience? Not because you do things. How
much more shall the blood of Christ who through the Eternal
Spirit offered himself without spot to God. Purge, beautiful word isn't it,
means to cleanse, to take a stain on a beautiful garment and wash
it and purge it right away so there is nothing left there at
all. Purge your conscience from dead works. All of our works
are dead works to serve the living God. There is freedom. There is freedom in the Lord
Jesus, freedom from judgment, freedom from the fears of death. There's a freedom, there's a
freedom to serve. We are, according to 1 Corinthians
7, 22, we are the Lord's freemen. As I said, a free, a free. There is, There is, as I said
earlier, in this desire to be under the law, there is a denial
of God's justice and a denial of His righteousness. If there's
some doing left that I have to do, then somehow there's something
deficient in what the Lord Jesus has done. God's justice demands the freedom
of all his blood-born children. We are the inheritors, God's
children. We are the inheritors of these
remarkable blessings. all these blessings, the blessings
of Abraham flow to his blood-born children. In this world we are
more than conquerors. The trials, even our trials,
are sanctified to our good. The law is fulfilled. We fulfill the law. We uphold
the law. We establish the law by faith. So why do people put themselves
back under the law? Why do people put themselves
back under a bondage of works? Well firstly, it is Satan who
takes people captive according to Ephesians 2. They work, they
walk according to the course of this world. according to the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience. We all lived there once. We all
had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were
made nature children of wrath, even as others. They are, in this world, Satan's
ministers. They masquerade as angels of
light. They've come into this Galatian
church zealous, zealous, moral people, Bibles in their hand,
talking about a Jesus, talking about God, reciting scripture,
talking about something plus the finished work of the Lord
Jesus, another Gospel. You see, the true Gospel is a
Gospel that saves and it's a Gospel that sanctifies. Where there
is no true gospel, when it starts with works, then works must be
paraded and works must be talked about and people must be flogged,
flogged from a pulpit to get them to act like they're believers. Again and again and again, the
false prophets are much more subtle than we imagine them to
be. But we also have another enemy
lurking within, don't we? An enemy to our soul's peace. It's called our own flesh. See, even Christians, even blood-bought
children, they like to find some reason in themselves to feel
right before God. They like to think that something
they do will make them feel a little more holy. Something they do
will give them some more peace. Something they do will earn them
some acceptance with God. We've all felt it, brothers and
sisters, haven't we? When we prayed a good prayer,
when we preached a good sermon, When we've done some good things,
we are the very first to pat ourselves on the back. I love
what, I think it was Newton, someone came up to John Newton,
and I've told the story before, someone came up to John Newton
and said, Brother Newton, that was one of the best sermons I've
ever heard. Blessed my soul, it was just
magnificent. And Newton turned to him and
said, don't worry brother, Satan told me that before I got down
out of the pulpit. We just love, our flesh loves
a pat on the back. And the religious people that
are doing these things are zealous. In Romans 10.3, we were there
a little while ago, but it's good to go back and look because
these are great descriptions, aren't they? Paul's heart's desire
and his prayer is in anguish as he writes Romans 9, 10 and
11. He's in anguish but he finds
his rest in the person and the character of God and His eternal
covenant. My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that
they might be saved. For I bear them record that they
have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, for they being
ignorant of God's righteousness. and going about to establish
their own. I love what Clay Curtis said
in his bulletin this week. He said, I can jump over a barn
if I'm allowed to build the barn. It's true, isn't it? I can attain a righteousness
if I'm allowed to be the measure of the righteousness. being ignorant of God's righteousness
and going about, you see they're active, they're busy, busy, busy,
aren't they? Doing, doing, doing, going about,
going about, going about, going all the way from Jerusalem to
Turkey, going and going and going. They went all the way over to
Philippi, they went everywhere, going about to establish their
own righteousness and they have not submitted themselves unto
the righteousness of God. So there are two things. There
is amongst those who are ignorant of God's righteousness, there
is a going about and a going about, but also there isn't a
submitting. And we know the people won't
submit by themselves. They will be brought to submission
by the sovereign, omnipotent hand of God. for Christ. Christ is the end
of the law. Christ, Romans 10.4, He's the
terminus. He's as far as the law can go. It hits a brick wall at the Lord
Jesus Christ and it goes no further. But it's the end of the law for
righteousness to everyone that believes. For those that don't
believe, For those who are still under that law as a covenant
of works, it will still have its demands on them. And its
demands are always the same. Absolute perfect holiness or
death. There's no in-between ground.
You're not going to modify it. God has no reason to change it. There is a couple of things I'd
like to look at in closing. a glorious liberty in us being
the nothings of this world there is a glorious liberty of being
a nothing in myself and Christ being everything. And there's
a glorious liberty in being honest. So I'd just like to look at two
of those in closing, those two things in closing. In 1 Corinthians
1, 28-30 it says, talks of those things that are not. Things that
are not. That's a description of us, isn't
it? People who by nature, they are those who will receive this
remarkable promise that we have on our notice board, and the
base things of the world and the things which I despise God
has chosen, and yea, the things which are not. That's a description
of us. To bring to naught the things
that are, that no flesh, no flesh ever should glory in his presence,
but of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made, made
unto us, wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
that is, according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory
in the Lord." See, they're nothings, aren't they? They're people who
by nature have no right to or existence in grace. They have
earned nothing for themselves. As Ephesians 2 says, they're
strangers from the covenants of promise and they're without
hope and without God in this world. They're nothings in spiritual
life by nature. The Jews used to call the Gentiles
the things which are not. God uses nothing to bring to
naught the things that are. God used poor fishermen to bring
to nothing the learned leaders of Israel. He used poor Gentiles
to bring to nothing the Jews who boasted in what they had. He used a nothing, David, to
defeat Goliath. Saul of Tarsus was a great somebody
and Paul was reduced to a nothing. Crucified with Christ. He no
longer lives. He was living once according
to Romans 7 without the law. He was living. Abraham was great in so many
things and then before the Lord he says, I am but dust and ashes. So nothing in wisdom, love, faith,
hope, repentance, godliness, grace, preaching, praying and
working. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing in myself. but a new
creature in Christ. Nothing in power, but strong
in Him. Nothing in my righteousness,
none at all but righteous in Him. Nothing in usefulness, but
useful in Him. Nothing in esteem in the eyes
of this world, but highly esteemed in Him. I've got nothing in this
world, but I have a place in this world to come with Him in
glory. Nothing in Adam, but an heir
of God in Christ. Redeemed nothings. Redeemed,
as we saw earlier, redeemed from Egypt by the blood of a lamb.
It's interesting, isn't it? The blood of a lamb was the redemption
price for a poor ass. God made Christ the redemption
price of just us poor nothings. We're redeemed, set free. The
payment has been paid. free from sin and death and curse
in the world, and held by the blood of the Lamb." God's children
have heard that trumpet sound, the one we spoke about last week,
that glorious liberty trumpet. Free, it says, free. Free. I love Psalm 89.15, it
says, Blessed is the people And I had written down that know
the joyful sound, that hear the joyful sound, does not hear the
joyful sound. Blessed are they that know, are
the people that know the joyful sound. They shall walk, O Lord,
in the light of Thy countenance. They hear the Gospel. They find the Gospel of free
and sovereign grace. A joyful, liberating sound. And there is, as I said earlier,
there's a liberty to be honest. The scriptures keep reinforcing,
isn't it, in Colossians 3.9, it says, lie not one to another. See, you have put off the old
man with its deeds. Just don't lie. Put away lying. There is a glorious freedom of
the children of God, to be honest. That doesn't mean that I have
to speak to you about all of my sin and all of my trials.
It's much better, I believe, so often for us to take them
to the Lord. But there is a glorious freedom.
that we can be honest about the struggles and the trials and
the temptations and the failings and the failures that are part
of what it is to live in this world, in this body of flesh. As Romans 7 says, the good I
wish to do, I do not. The evil that I don't wish to
do, that I do. He says, I'm carnal, I'm sold
under sin. And then there is a glorious
freedom, isn't it, of a man who cries out, O wretched man. And he says something that if
God hadn't written it in his word, if you were a schoolteacher
like June and I, you would be horrified if one of your students
came up to you and said, and it's no more I that do it, but
sin that dwells in me. I have a freedom to be honest
about what I am. And we have a freedom to be honest
with each other. A freedom to preach and speak
the Gospel to each other. A freedom to care for each other
in the midst of the trials. You see the trials are there
under the hand of a sovereign God, all this testing and turning
and the difficulties that we have in the flesh. I'm just reading
something from Daniel Allen's book, From the Heart. He says,
Now I see why and wherefore all the conflict with law and sin
and death and devils and trials, sorrows and darkness, stripping,
emptying, killing, tossing upside down, turning inside out, in
which many times I thought I would die. It has been to burn, to
wash, to turn and to purge out of me this lie of Satan which
was engrafted into me by nature. I thought, like so many false teachers,
he says, I thought I could and must prepare myself for God and
thus be saved by my own determination. And he eventually is brought
to a place where he says, Lord have mercy upon me just as I
am for I can get no better. And he said, many a time I thought
God would destroy me quite. Now I see that it has been in
love and to save me from this accursed thing, this accursed
thing that he can do something of his flesh. Hope has decayed. God has delayed and seemed to
quite forsake me. Heaven shut. Hell opened. God
hid. Grace shut up. Sin and Satan
loose. all that this lie might be cut
down and the Lord be God alone. This fiery process has still
to go on to keep this monster down. I bless God my Saviour. He is not such an unmerciful
God nor so helpless in saving as they represent Him to be.
I will say to His praise that when there was none to help,
None to pity, his own arm brought salvation unto me. Dark times are part of what it
is to walk in this body of flesh and in this world. Newton said,
could my heart so hard remain and prayer a task and burden
prove and every trial give me pain if I knew the Saviour's
love? When I turn my eyes within, all
is dark and vanity. I am filled with unbelief and
sin. Can I call myself God's child? If I pray and sing and read,
sin is mixed with everything I do. You that love the Lord
indeed, is that not so with you?" When he sang Charlotte Elliot's
hymn, Just As I Am, she penned these amazing words. She says,
O thou the contrite sinner's friend, who loving lovest to
the end. On this alone my hope depends,
that Christ will plead for me. When weary in this Christian
race, far off appears my resting place, and fading I doubt God's
grace. O Saviour, pray for me. When I have erred and gone far
astray, far from the heavenly way, I see no glimmering guiding
ray, O Saviour, pray for me. I'll just finish with a few words
out of Romans 6. He says, likewise, Romans 6.4.11,
likewise, likewise, like Christ. Knowing that Christ, being raised
from the dead, dieth no more, death has no more dominion over
him. For he that died, died unto sin once, but he that liveth,
liveth unto God. Likewise, reckon also yourselves
to be dead indeed to sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord." I like God's reckoning. I like God's reckonings. Reckon yourselves dead indeed
under sin. When Satan accuses, he ends up
being God's devil in the lives of his people. What does he accuse
you of? He accuses us of doing no good
at all. He accuses us, as I said to Norm
last week, he never accuses us without having some basis for
his accusations. But he ends up being a servant
of the Lord in the hearts of his people. Because what he does is he reminds
us that all that we have in our flesh is nothing in the sight
of God. If we have the Lord Jesus Christ,
we have absolutely everything. He can criticize me and it can
be true in the courts of this world. He can't criticise me
at all in the courts of heaven. Reckon yourselves, reckon yourselves
also to be dead indeed to sin. Dead when the Redeemer died. By the grace of God, We are what
we are, crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Satan's
accusations against a dead person are irrelevant. Yet I live, but not I, but Christ
liveth in me. The life which I now live in
the flesh, This life I live right now, I live by the faith of the
Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Let's pray.