OK, let's turn our scriptures
to Galatians chapter 2. We have before us, it's remarkable
isn't it to think that these words are almost 2000 years old. Remarkable. It is wonderful as you, the more
you study the Scriptures, the more you realise that those words
that the Lord Jesus said towards the end of His life and during
His ministry, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, that the
Scriptures might be fulfilled, and the Gospel is according to
the Scriptures, according to the Scriptures. And when we come
across verses like this one that cause deep, deep concern to the
people of God. Verse 21 of Galatians 21, I do
not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness come by
the law, then Christ is dead in vain. There are many sins
in this world that are grievous sins. This is a particular sin
of the people who have heard the Gospel. It's a particular sin. All sins
are heinous, all sins are grievous. But to frustrate the grace of
God, to nullify, to cast it away, to set it aside, To set aside
the grace of God means that you have heard it. When we were in
India, I went to many villages that had never seen a white person
before. They can't frustrate the grace
of God. They never did frustrate the
grace of God. But here in this letter to Galatians
we have some people who in the church of their day were highly
esteemed. They were remarkable for their
knowledge, they were remarkable for their zeal, they were remarkable
for their travelling over land and sea. The people that Paul
is writing to in Galatia are in what is now central Turkey. These people had travelled all
the way from Jerusalem to central Turkey 2,000 years ago. No easy
trip and yet Paul says of them, that they are not Christians,
but anti-Christians. They do not esteem the grace
of God, they nullify, they frustrate the grace of God. And then at the end of that sentence,
for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead
in vain. There they were claiming to be
Christians and yet by their doctrine and by their practices they actually
make the death of Christ, that word in vain, for no purpose,
without cause, died for nothing, unnecessary. Paul is coming to
the end of a section in these first two chapters where he describes
himself, describes the ministry that God has given him and describes
his personal life and he does it in the context of one of the
most remarkable sermons you can imagine. In the church in Antioch,
that famous church that sent out missionaries, Barnabas and
Paul, that famous church, the most famous and vigorous church
in all of the Gentile world, and there in that church service
are Peter, the Apostle Peter, and Barnabas, and others with
them, and some others from Jerusalem, and they were separated. They
wouldn't eat with the Gentiles. Peter wouldn't eat with the Gentiles. He picked up his plate and he
moved his plate from a table of Gentiles to a table of Jews,
because he was fearful of these Jews from Jerusalem. And so this,
I believe, is still the end of a sermon, a remarkable sermon
that Paul preached. And he publicly, he publicly
rebukes the Apostle Peter. And he says to Peter, you stood
condemned, you are to be blamed. And Barnabas and these other
people along with him. And he finishes, he finishes
with these extraordinary strong words. I do not frustrate the
grace of God, for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ
is dead in vain." I'd like us to look for a little while this
morning at those three remarkable words in there, three things
that are absolutely essential for salvation. One is the grace
of God. The other one is the righteousness
of God. How good do you have to be to
get into heaven? The answer in the scriptures
is a really simple answer. You have to be as good as God. If you're going to enter into
God's house, God will only accept in His house people who are just
like Him. They must be perfectly holy,
perfectly righteous, perfectly free from sin, perfectly Loving,
yes God is loving. If any of you know anything of
yourselves, you would say instantly, that cuts me out completely. I have no hope of getting into
heaven. The religious world tells people
and has been telling people for thousands of years, you can get
in there by your own activities and all you have to do is be
a little bit better than Hitler. All you have to do is be a little
bit religious. All you have to do is some righteous things,
perform some deeds. Paul is saying here, isn't he?
If righteousness comes by anything you do at all, if your righteousness
has anything to do with your activities at all, then Christ
is dead in vain. Christ has, according to
chapter 5, become of no effect unto you. no effect on you if you are justified
by the law, you've fallen from grace. I think these verses culminate
a section which just allows us to contemplate what it is to
be a Christian, to contemplate what it is to be saved. Let's read the last part of this
sermon from verse 16 down. We, or verse 15, we who are Jews
by nature and not sinners of the Gentile, knowing that a man
is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith
of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus
Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not
by the works of the law. For by the works of the law shall
no flesh, shall no human being be justified. But if while we
seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners. If we seek to be justified by
Christ, if we are then looking, not like the pure law-abiding
Jews, but we are looking like sinners of the Gentiles, is therefore
Christ a minister of sin? Does he promote sin? God forbid. He certainly does
not. And then he describes the danger,
isn't it? For if I build again the things
which I destroyed, he destroyed all of his self-righteousness,
he destroyed all of his legal self-righteousness, he declared
himself under that law to be a spotless and a blameless man.
He destroyed those things for the sake of Christ. I make myself
a transgressor, for I through the law am dead to the law, that
I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in
the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son
of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace
of God. For if righteousness come by
the law, then Christ is dead in vain." We have the testimony
of a Christian describing what it is to be a Christian. And
what a good thing for us to contemplate again, isn't it? That we might
know We might know from the scriptures that we really are Christians
and that we might know from the scriptures that we are not Christians. It's better to have the diagnosis
from God and seek the remedy where God provides the remedy
rather than to live in presumption, isn't it? When my wife had cancer,
The one thing that we did, say to the doctors, you do whatever
you have to do. You cut as deep, you poison as
much as you possibly can, just deal with it. Sin is a huge, huge curse upon
mankind and it can't be dealt with in any light way and God
will not treat it in any light way. where God sees sin, He must,
because of His holiness, He must, because of His justice, He must,
because of His love, He must deal with it perfectly and completely
and eternally. As I said earlier, there are
three remarkable words in this verse that are the essence of
salvation. And with it, Paul comes to the
conclusion of this sermon. I do not frustrate the grace
of God. For if righteousness come by
the law, then Christ is dead in vain. Let's just look again
at what grace means. Grace is a remarkable word, isn't
it? We have to be really careful when words become common. I don't
know if you remember just a matter of a month or so ago, Mr Obama
President Obama made Amazing Grace, a very famous song, didn't
he, as he led that church in singing it down in Southern America
where those people were killed in that church service and he
knew some of them and so he went down and he sang Amazing Grace. It's become so popular. We need
to examine our understanding in light of the Scriptures. You
have some articles in your bulletin that will expand on some of these
things, but let's just define grace. Grace is a description
of the Lord Jesus Christ and it's a description of the Gospel. It's the grace of God has come
to you, says Titus 2.11. Grace is the eternal and absolute
free favour of God revealed in giving spiritual and eternal
blessings to the guilty and the unworthy. So the two necessary
requirements from your point of view are what Newton said
in his song, isn't it? Amazing grace that saved a wretch I heard
someone talking about it the other day, and Newton was a seafaring
man, and they thought that he probably might have meant that
saved a wreck like me. You can imagine a wrecked old
timber ship from those days of the 18th century, just lying
in the mud, decaying away, no sails on it, just a wreck like
me. Guilty and unworthy. It's the
blessing, it's the infinite eternal blessings of God to those who
have no merit in them at all. So to be a recipient of grace
you have to be guilty and unworthy, you have to have no merit in
you whatsoever, and the blessings of grace are given with God expecting
no compensation from you whatsoever." That's blessings, spiritual and
eternal blessings given to those who are hell deserving, given
to those who don't deserve them, have done nothing to deserve
them, can never do anything to deserve them, and given to those
who do not even seek them. It's given to those who can't
buy them, can't earn, can't win. Win them by anything they do. It's given to those who don't
ask them or in the beginning of it don't even desire them
at all. Grace saves. Grace really is salvation. The grace of God that brings
salvation has appeared to all men. Grace, as Ableton says,
is God's eternal favour and blessing upon a sinner who neither deserves
it nor seeks it. Grace is salvation. Grace is Christ. And when you receive grace, you
receive all of the Lord Jesus Christ in the totality of his
being and in the totality of his sin-bearing death. He does
two remarkable things, doesn't he? He comes into this world
and he lives as a man under the law of God and we read about
how he suffered As a man, a man of sorrows and familiar with
suffering, he lived really, really as a man. He really suffered
as a man, suffered the things that you and I suffer and never
had any sin. having woven that robe of perfect
righteousness, that the righteous requirements of God's law are
fully met in us because they're fully met in Him. He then, on
the cross, then became, he was made the sin of his people. That's what the scriptures say
in 2 Corinthians. He was made sin, and when God
found sin on his son, the sword of God's holy justice was unsheathed. and it slew the Son of God. The wrath of God was poured out
so fully upon the Son of God that all of God's wrath, all
of God's wrath, all of His holy wrath against sin is completely,
completely exhausted. And there are, according to God,
In God's children there are no sins. No sins to be remended,
no sins to be dug up, no sins ever to be found again. God can't find them. They're completely taken away. That substitution that we're
talking about is at the heart of the Gospel, isn't it? If you
are in Him, then you have all of Him, you have all of His righteousness,
the righteousness of God, and you have all of your sins taken
away. That's why grace is so important
and grace is so amazing. See, grace is only amazing for
those who have been made to confront the reality of the sin that they
are, the sin that they are and the sin that they do. Paul is an emblem of grace. Paul is a trophy of grace. I just thought we'd look again
back in Galatians and just see how grace operates in the life
of a believer. And here we have a description,
God's description of a Christian. Jesus said when he was dying,
that night before he died, this is life eternal, that they might
know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast
sent. To know God is to know his person,
to know him intimately, and to know him personally, and to know
him, to experience him. We read those amazing verses
that we looked at last week, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless
I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which
I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me." That is the testimony
of a Christian, isn't it? So where does it all begin? We
go back to verse 15 of chapter 1. Paul talks about his life
prior to the Lord entering in. Paul was remarkable in the Jewish
religion. They say that he had the equivalent
of two PhDs by the time he was 21. He was a remarkably intelligent
man. People have said that there are
very few people who have lived on this planet who were as bright
as the Apostle Paul. Not only was he bright, he had
the most remarkable heritage. a child of the tribe of Benjamin.
He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, he described himself. As for
Zeal, he was a Pharisee. The separated ones, the ones
that separated themselves in that religious nation, they separated
themselves from the religion, the other religious ones, because
they were so zealous for the law of God. Paul, in all probability,
could have started at Genesis 1-1 and kept on reciting the
Old Testament. and kept on reciting. Book after
book after book they knew the scriptures inside out, they knew
the law, they worked out that there were 613 laws that they
had to obey, 365 negative ones and so many other positive ones,
and they scrupulously did it. They even got to the point when
they came to their spices in their kitchens, they would actually
give a tithe of their mint And Paul profited. He profited in that Jewish religion. He was exceedingly zealous for
the traditions of his fathers. This is what a Christian is,
isn't it? The first thing that God must rescue you from is from
what you are profiting in at the time. He must rescue you
from religion if you are religious, he must rescue you from self-righteousness
if you are self-righteous, he must rescue you, and he does
it according to verse 15, but when it pleased God, we've just
read in Isaiah 53 about God being pleased, it pleased the Lord
to crush his son, it pleased him. It honoured His name, honoured
His glory, honoured His scriptures. God is a God who is pleased. He does all things according
to the pleasure of His will. But it pleased God who separated
me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace. The call of the Gospel is a call
of grace. Because it's a call of grace,
it's not a call for you to look at your works, but to look away
from your works. It's a call to look to the Lord
Jesus, who is gracious, and not to yourselves, and not to what
you have done, not to what you might do. Not to your promises,
but to His promises. Not to your pleasure, but to
His pleasure. He separated me from my mother's
womb. He separates his people. They
are always his people. Paul saw the blasphemer, saw
the self-righteous religious man, was nevertheless Paul, the
child of God. It is remarkable, isn't it? We
learn from Paul's life in the early chapters of Acts. that
it was when the Lord Jesus was resurrected and when the Lord
Jesus was revealed in the church being formed as the fruit of
His life that Saul became more enraged. And like irrational
people enraged against the Gospel of the Lord Jesus, the more blood
he shed You would think it would satisfy him, but the more blood
he shed, the more blood he desired to shed. And you know the story,
don't you? He separated him from his mother's
womb to reveal, and called him by his grace, to reveal his son
in me. A Christian who is someone who
has had the Lord Jesus revealed. whereabouts, revealed in them. So this is the hope of glory,
says Colossians 1.27, isn't it? Christ in you is the hope of
glory. Not what we do for Him, but what
He does for us. And He went forth, as it says,
that I might preach Him. So preaching, Christian preaching,
is preaching Him. That's all it is, isn't it? It's preaching the Lord Jesus
Christ. I want to tell you again and
again that He is God. Jesus Christ rules this universe
right now. And if we read and knew our scriptures,
we'd be just amazed how clearly the scriptures are describing
this world that we live in, in 2015, with extraordinary accuracy. with extraordinary accuracy,
as accurate as it was in the days of his life. It was almost
as if the Pharisees and the Sadducees and Herod and all those people
who killed him had a script. It was almost as if they had
the Old Testament script written out chronologically, and now
what will you do here? And now what will you do here?
Now how much will we offer Judas for him? Thirty pieces of silver. It was almost as if they read
the script. How God reigns. Will they break
one of his bones? No. Was the Jewish method of
execution crucifixion? No, it wasn't. It was stoning.
Did the Romans normally crucify people with spikes and nails? No, they didn't. They just had
it years beforehand. Did they pierce his side with
a spear? Everything, everything that happens
in this universe is the unfolding of a sovereign God's plan and
purpose. So a Christian is someone with
whom God is pleased. He's someone who is separated
by God. He's someone who hears the call
of grace. See, Paul and these Jewish false
teachers going all the way to Turkey, they weren't calling
people to grace. They were calling people to works,
and they were calling people to law. Paul was doing exactly
the same. They would travel over land and
sea, according to the Lord Jesus, to try and make one Jewish convert,
and they were successful. And then the Lord Jesus says,
when they have finished their work in them, that person is
twice the child of hell. They were better off to have
never heard than to have heard legalism, to have heard Pharisaical
works of righteousness, to have heard what is proclaimed by Christians
around this world today. you're better off not hearing
it. We had the most remarkable experience in India of working
with hundreds and hundreds of missionaries and teaching their
children. If they read this letter, these
simple words that we are describing here that I'm just reading to
you, they would pack their bags and go home. Every last one of
them that I knew. The biggest mission organisation
in the world has 20,000 missionaries, and they deny every single thing
that I have stated here, just out of the Word of God. They
openly deny it. They openly proclaim that they
have put people back under the law of Moses. What is a Christian? Verse 16, a Christian is someone
who knows things. Christians know things, knowing
that a man is not justified by the works of the law. They are not justified by the
works of the law. To be justified, as I said earlier,
is to have a declaration in the courtroom of God. It's a transaction
between God and God. A transaction between a holy
God and a son who represents his people. It's God's declaration
in God's court that God's children have no sin because of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's what it is to be justified.
Where are you involved in that? We are wonderfully, wonderfully
involved because wherever the Lord Jesus stood, he stood as
a representative. Christians know that a man is
not justified by the works of the law. Christians are people
who know that they have nothing to boast in, in anything that
they have ever done. They won't come to you and tell
you how righteous they are. They won't come to you telling
you how to be righteous by things that you do. Christians are people
who know that. Christians are people who know
not only that they're not justified by the works of law, but they
are justified by, and read it there, by the faith, the faithful
obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is all that our justification,
the perfect faithful obedience of the God-man, the Lord Jesus
Christ. They know that. They know those
things, for even we have believed. Christians are people who know
those two things. They are not justified by anything
they do. They are justified by everything that the Lord Jesus
has done and they believe. It's the great description of
a Christian in the scriptures, I believe, is that they are believers. They just believe what God says.
They're not interested any longer in debating with God. I'll let
you into a little secret, brothers and sisters. He's not much interested
in your opinion. He's not much interested in my
opinion. So much nonsense goes on because
people want to have their opinion. You might say that and I might
say something else. God's not interested. He's interested
in His opinion about His Son and Christians know that and
Christians believe. to believe is to find yourself
at rest, at rest in who He is and what He has done. What sort
of righteousness do you need before God? You need perfect
righteousness. Brothers and sisters, I am sinning
now and so are you. We wake up in the morning sinners
from the things that we dreamt. We are sinners by nature, we
are sinners by practice. Only God, only God can show us
that we are sinners. And sinners, sinners look away
from themselves and sinners look to the Lord Jesus Christ. I love
that picture, that story we have In Luke's Gospel, you can tell
me if you like, Luke 18, it says, and he spoke this parable unto
certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous. What
a great description of all of Adam's children. They trusted
in themselves that were righteous and despised others. That's what
happens when Adam's children get a bit of religion, isn't
it? A bit of law-keeping religion. They've got the ability now to
look down on someone else who hasn't performed to their standards.
Here's the Lord Jesus talking about justification. Two men
went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other
a Republican. The Pharisee stood and prayed
thus with himself. He didn't pray with God, he prayed
with himself, and he says, God. So he's acknowledging God, and
he's thankful to God. God, I thank Thee, that I am
not as other men are. Dear, oh dear, how often have
you mouthed those words and thought those words as we looked around
this world. I thank thee that I am not as
other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, even as this
publican. The publican had two big public
sins, of course, in Israel. One was that he worked for the
Romans, and so he was a traitor to nation Israel. The other one
was that he handled Roman coins. and on the Roman coin were idolatrous
images of Roman emperors and Roman gods and things. So he
was as filthy as you could get. Not only that, he made money
out of it and he had the opportunity to steal and rob. He had a certain
amount he had to pay and anything he could garner above that was
his own. So he was almost the lowest of
the low in nation Israel, certainly in the eyes of these people who
thought they were righteous, not even as this publican. Then
he describes his righteousness, doesn't he? I fast twice a week.
The law only says to fast once a week, but he's now, this man
is really kicking some goals for God. I give tithes of all
I possess. I make sure the mint is tithed
and the paprika is tithed. I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar
off, would not lift so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote
upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. The word merciful means God be
propitious. It means God look upon your atoning
sacrifice. Look upon your son and his sin-bearing
death. and be merciful to me, a sinner."
In the original, it is the sinner. He's not worried about other
sinners. There is one sinner that matters. God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. God, look upon your son. He had by grace seen that those
sacrifices, they killed lambs, Sheep twice a day in the temple,
and then they killed thousands of them at festival times. Everyone
in Israel would bring sheep there. And they knew, anyone who had
half a brain knew that those sacrifices achieved nothing. Why? Because as soon as they'd
done with them, they had to turn around and do them again. As
soon as they'd done the one at three o'clock in the afternoon,
they had to start at nine o'clock in the morning and do another
one. When the nine o'clock one was done, they had to do another
one at three. And every time there was sin,
there was another sacrifice. The only satisfaction in all
of those sacrifices was that those sacrifices represented
the sacrifice that we read about in Isaiah 53 of the Lord Jesus. May His soul and offering for
sin, by His stripes we are healed. God the sinner says, look to
the Lord Jesus and be gracious to me. I tell you, this man went
down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone
that exalts himself shall be abased, and he that humbles himself
shall be exalted." Back to Galatians, chapter 2. So they know things. Christians know things. Christians
know that through the law that I am dead
to the law. The law of God, because of my
union with the Lord Jesus Christ, it slew me as it slew Him. I am dead to the law that I might
live unto God. You cannot live unto the law
and live unto God at the same time. A Christian knows that. A Christian has been brought
to know that, that they cannot live under God on the basis of
anything that they do. They live under God on the basis
of who the Lord Jesus is. Romans 10 says that Christ is
the end of the law for righteousness. To everyone that believes is
the end. He's as far as you can go in
righteousness. You want to be righteous? Jesus
Christ is as far as you can go. He is the end of the law for
righteousness. That law slew him and killed
him, but now he lives to God. A Christian in verse 20 is someone
who has a unity, a perfect unity, an eternal covenant unity with
the Lord Jesus Christ. A Christian is one who delights
in God's electing grace and delights in God's sovereign grace and
finds their comfort in the fact that our Sovereign God chooses. But our Sovereign God chooses
because of a relationship, a relationship formed in eternity, a relationship,
a union with the Lord Jesus Christ that brought Him to this earth
for the glory of His Father and for the salvation of His people.
I am crucified with Christ. He, in the eternal covenant,
in that promise that he made before the world began, said, on behalf of all of his people,
I will take full responsibility for all of them. I am the Good
Shepherd. They are my sheep. I take full
responsibility for them. I take full responsibility for
all their sins. I take full responsibility for
all of their righteousness. That's why Paul can say, I am
crucified with Christ. Everything Christ did is an us
activity, isn't it? Yet not I, but Christ lives
in me. Christians are people who know
the indwelling of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not
I, Christ lives in me. The faith that Christians have
is a faith that's His faith growing in them. The love that Christians
have for God and the love that they have for other people is
a love that comes from Him living in them. A Christian is someone
who lives in the flesh. You see it there. He says, the
life which I now live in the flesh. Christians still have
a life to live. They are real human beings. They will say with Paul, that
in my flesh dwells no good thing. We have, the scriptures say,
this treasure in jars of clay. I live in this flesh, I have
to live in this flesh with all of my weaknesses, all of my sinfulness,
all of my insecurities, all of the failings of my character. I live in this flesh with all
of the emotional problems. I live like you do, with doubts
and fears, and I live like you do, often grieving over my unbelief. A Christian is someone who lives
in the flesh with all the hindrances, all the hindrances that it brings
to live in this world. We are not unlike our brothers
and sisters. Who makes you to differ? Who
makes you to differ? What do you have that you didn't
receive? And if you receive it as a gift,
why do you boast about it? God's children don't boast about
it. They are poor in spirit. All they have is the Lord Jesus
Christ. They mourn over sin. They are the meek of this earth. They do really hunger and thirst
after righteousness, the righteousness of Christ. They are merciful. They really are, in God's eyes,
the pure in heart. They have clean hearts before
God. Not in themselves, but in the
Lord Jesus. They live a life, the life that
they now live That verse goes on to say, I live by the faith
of the Son of God. We live by His faith. As 1 John
1.9 says, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. And then
these two amazing words at the end, I live by the faith of the
Son of God, and he describes the Son of God. who loved me." He loves a particular people
and he loves them perfectly. I love what he says in that upper
room at the end of his time on this earth, and he says, having
loved his own in the world, he loved them to the very end. He loved them completely. He
loved them finally. He has a love which is particular
and which is purposeful. This notion which is so common
that God loves everyone and Jesus died for everyone, there is not
a single word in this scripture that supports it. Never once
do you find the preachers of the Gospel ever declaring that
to people. God's love is particular and
purposeful. I've loved you with an everlasting
love, therefore with love and kindness I have drawn you." A
Christian is someone who knows that the Son of God loved me
and He gave Himself. He gave all of Himself for me. He gave all of Himself. If we have all of Him, we have
all of the righteousness of God, we have all of the grace of God,
then the Lord Jesus is not dead in vain to us. Christians are
horrified to think that others might see the death of the Lord
Jesus as a vanity. as something that is empty, as
something that is meaningless. Paul must have almost quivered
and shaken as he wrote those words under the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit, to think that Christ might die in vain, not
for his people, not for his people. He'll make sure that they never
frustrate the grace of God. They'll proclaim the Gospel of
free and sovereign grace and they'll never want to see His
work as a vanity. Why don't you turn to Hebrews
10 and we'll just finish with a few verses out of Hebrews 10. He speaks in verse 9. He says,
I come to do Thy will, O God. He takes away the first. He takes
away that old covenant of legal works. He takes away the first
that He may establish this second. He may establish the eternal
everlasting new covenant. By the witch will, we are, verse
10, we are sanctified. That word sanctified simply means
to be made holy. We are sanctified through the
offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all. How good do you have to be to
get into Heaven? You have to be holy, brothers and sisters.
You cannot make yourself holy. Holiness is God's and God's alone
to give. But this man, after he'd offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, a one-off sacrifice forever,
sat down at the right hand of God. Sat down. The work is finished. He is seated on the throne of
this universe. He sat down at the right hand
of God. from henceforth expecting till
he's any of these men made his footstool. Verse 14, four by
one, offering he has, what's the word say, perfected forever
them that are sanctified. Does that thrill your heart,
brothers and sisters? See how do we not frustrate the
grace of God? We don't frustrate the grace
of God by finding it delightful, by finding it liberating, by
finding it glorifying the Lord Jesus in all of his character. Glorified in us and us in him. Remarkable Saviour. Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, we thank
You again for this time we've had to look again at the Lord
Jesus Christ, to look again at ourselves. And we pray, Heavenly
Father, You would cause us, You would make us to deal honestly
with ourselves. And Heavenly Father, we pray
that You would cause Your Son to be seen by us as the alone
Saviour of sinners. Heavenly Father, help us by Your
grace to look away from ourselves and to look to Him. We praise
You, Heavenly Father, that all of your children are accepted
in the Beloved, in the Lord Jesus, who is your Beloved. Heavenly
Father, make Him our Beloved. And as we take these emblems
which remind us of His shed blood and that broken body, we might
proclaim, as Isaiah 53 says, that by His stripes we are healed,
that we might go away from our time thinking about what an amazing
cost, but what even more a remarkable victory the Lord Jesus has won.
We praise you, Heavenly Father, that He reigns and what a remarkable
thing He's promised. He's perfected forever them that
are sanctified. purely by His work, thankfully
not by ours. Help us to find our rest and
our trust and our confidence, our assurance and our hope in
who He is and what He has done. We commit ourselves into Your
hands, our Father. We pray in Jesus' name and for
His glory. Amen.