Titus chapter 3. I want to just read verses 1 through
6 because this will be an important context
to our passage this morning that we'll look more particularly
at, which will be verses 7 and 8. We'll look particularly at
verses 7 and 8. But look at verse 1 right now,
please. Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and
powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work,
to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing
all meekness unto all men. For we ourselves also were at
one time foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving diverse lusts
and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating
one another. After that, the kindness and
love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness
which we have done. In the timing of this, of course,
the context is so important. He's calling us to good works
and reminding us that we're not saved by good works. not by works
of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy.
And you know what mercy is? Mercy is for people who do bad
things. And His mercy is for people who
do nothing but bad things. According to His mercy, He saved
us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost,
which He shed on us abundantly. Our God doesn't do anything halfway.
His peace passes all understanding. His love, Paul said, is wide
and deep and high and broad. And He sheds His mercy abundantly
through Jesus Christ, our Savior. There's no mercy apart from the
Savior. Jesus Christ, and then verse
7, that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs
according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying. This is one of those faithful
sayings in the scripture, especially pointed out as being reliable
and something you can count on, something that's important. And these things that I will,
that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed
in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are
good and profitable unto men. Verse 7 now, being justified
by his grace. This is the premise to what verse
8 says. about good works. Be careful
to maintain good works. He said there in the context
be ready for every good work. Be careful and ready to do good
works. But there's no verse 8 without
verse 7. There's no good works without justification by grace
without mercy. Without verse 7, all you and
I are going to maintain is our downward death spiral into the
depths of depravity and ultimately hell. That's all we're going
to maintain. All of our works will contribute
to that. Unless and until God justifies us by his free sovereign
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, the
blood of Christ, Until that, until he does, everything that
we call a good work is just another brick in the
vast wall of evil and filth and depravity that we build every
day. Our so-called good works not only do not contribute to
our salvation in any way, but they are what we must be saved
from, our sins. First Corinthians 15.3 says that,
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received,
how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. Wait a minute Chris, I didn't
hear anything about my good works in that verse did you not? Sins. There they are right there. There's your good works. There
is the best that you have ever done. The best that you will
do this morning, the best that you will ever do, right there
contained in that one little word, sins. He died for our sins. That's all of our works. Good and evil. And I only say
good at all because God does. And we'll see about that in a
minute. Let's look at a passage of scripture now that will expound
our text, verse 7, better than anything that anybody else could
ever say. Being justified, cut it again,
being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs, joint
heirs with Christ, heirs of God, according to the hope of eternal
life. What hope is there for me to
have eternal life? That rich young ruler came to
our Lord Jesus Christ and said, what must I do that I might inherit
eternal life? And you know the rest of that.
The Lord confronted him with the law because he said, what
must I do? And so he said, thou shalt and thou shalt not. You
know the law. And the man said, I've kept all
these from my youth up. That's the delusion of every
religious sinner in this world. I'm doing good so that I might
go to heaven when I die." And our Lord confronted him. He said,
there's one thing you lack. And out of all those commandments
that that man said, I've kept all of them. The Lord started
with the first one, which is what? No other gods before me. He said, go and sell everything
that you have and give it to the poor and come follow me.
Have only one God. Worship only one. Understand
and know and believe in your heart that one thing is needful. And he went away sorrowful. But
how can I then? Who then can be saved? With men
it's impossible. But there is hope of eternal
life. Let's look at it in Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3. Very familiar
passage. But if we're going to expound
Titus 3.7, you're not going to find a better exposition of that
than this right here. Romans 3 verse 10. As it is written,
there is none righteous, no not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after
God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become
unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no not one. And he begins to describe our
evil. And this is everybody now. This
is not the Jews. This is not the Gentiles. This
is all of them, everybody. None are good. Here's what everybody
is though, right here. Their throat is an open grave.
Their tongues they have used deceit. They're liars. They're dead. The poison of asps
is under their lips. They're destructive and subtle
like Satan. His mouth is full of cursing
and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood, murderers. Destruction and misery are in
their way. The way of peace they have not known. There's no fear
of God before their eyes. They have no use for God or anything
that he says. Now we know that whatsoever things
the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, it says
to those people, which is everybody, that every mouth may be stopped.
It says what it says so that you'll quit talking about your
goodness, so that you'll quit defending yourself before God,
so you'll quit justifying yourself. There's one way sinners are justified
and it's coming up. You may stop your mouth, and
all the world may do that, and become guilty before God. In other words, acknowledge your
guilt before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. Why?
Because we've busted every one of God's laws. The rich young
ruler said, I've kept these from my youth up. He was a liar. He
was deceived. And our Lord taught him that.
For by the law is the knowledge of sin. That's all the law can
do. It can't put away your sins, but it can let you know about
them. That's what it does. That's why it's a schoolmaster
to bring us to Christ, because you look to the law and you see
how evil you are. What are you going to do? You're going to
fly out to the Redeemer, if God ever shows you that. But now
the righteousness of God, without you keeping the law, verse 21,
is manifested, being witnessed by the law. and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God
which is by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. If you look
up the original Greek there, that's what that says. By the
faithfulness of Jesus Christ. By His keeping of the law. Sinners
are righteous. Unto all and upon all them that
believe. There's your faith right there.
Because you're not going to be saved without it. without faith in Christ. For
there is no difference. It's the same. Salvation is the
same for everybody because there's no difference. If some were good
and some were bad, then salvation for the good would just be, hey,
just keep on doing good and salvation for the bad would be, oh, you
need a Savior. But there is no difference. And so there's one
way. Everybody is the same. All are
sold under sin and so all are going to be saved. One way. All have sinned, verse 23, and
come short of the glory of God. Being justified freely by His
grace. If a sinner is going to be justified,
it won't be by his law-keeping. It'll be freely. That word is
without a cause. That's without a cause in you.
There's nothing in you. No quality, no deed that you've
done. No decision. No difference, no distinction
in you that caused God to save you. His grace is free. His justification
is without a cause in you. By His grace, through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. No cause in you, free grace,
but God can't just arbitrarily say you're guilty and you're
not guilty without some basis. You say, well, you're limiting
God. You're saying God can't do something. No, that's not
limiting God. He can't do that because He's holy. That doesn't
diminish God. That exalts Him. Alright, verse 25. Whom God,
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has
set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to
be a sin offering. To declare his righteousness
for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God. To declare, I say it this time, his righteousness. He spent the whole context before
this talking about how you don't have any. And now he's saying,
look there is somebody that does. There is a man who does. There
is a representative who does. There is an Adam who does. There
is a Savior who does have righteousness. who is righteousness, the very
righteousness of God. And God, by the redemption, through
the redemption that is in Christ his Son, freely justifies sinners
that he might be just. Verse 26, To declare, I say,
at this time his righteousness, that he might be just, and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. How can God be holy
and let you off scot-free by punishing his son in your place.
That's how. That's the only way. And so you
see how that expounds our verse? Being justified by his grace. We're made heirs. What must I
do that I might inherit eternal life? With men it is impossible. You must have the very righteousness
of God. You must be righteous by the
faithfulness of Jesus Christ. And God has set him forth to
be a sin offering and declared his righteousness. Well, how
can I obtain it though? Through faith in him. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Because he is righteous. Now notice the words in verse
8 of our text. They which have believed. There's some parts of our text
verses 7 and 8 this morning that we're not even really going to
look at. And it's because I want us to see specifically these
words. Grace and works. That's the title
of the message. Grace and works. Notice the words
they which have believed in verse 8. Those who have not believed
in the scriptures Those who have not believed, what are they told
to do? Get rid of your works. Cease
from your works. That rich young ruler had not
believed. What was he told to do? Go get, go sell everything
you've accomplished in life. All of your work has amassed
some kind of an estate. Go get rid of it. Everything
you've done is useless. It's worthless. And come follow
me. They are told those who have
not believed are told that they cannot do anything to be saved.
Mark 10, 27. They are told that it is impossible
for them to do anything to be saved, anything that's good.
They are told that they are incapable of coming to the Lord Jesus Christ
without a powerful act of God the Father, which clearly every
sinner doesn't receive the benefit of. John chapter 6. Good works
are never encouraged for the unbeliever. In fact, Paul says
that part of being saved is abandoning all of your own works and laying whole of the Lord
Jesus Christ, Philippians 3. If you look at the context there,
Paul said, I leave all of that behind me and press toward Christ. What is he leaving behind him?
All of his sins? No, all of his righteousnesses.
which are sins. He names them all. Circumcised
the eighth day according to the law, blameless. Nobody could
accuse me of anything. It's all done now though, because
I see that Christ is the only righteousness. If I'm to be justified
before God, it must be by His faithfulness, His works, not
mine. And so unbelievers are commanded
to repent. They're commanded to believe.
But they are told in no uncertain terms in 2 Timothy 2.25 that
the ability for a sinner to repent is God's grant. It's got to be
granted by God. They're commanded to believe
but are told very plainly that faith is the gift of God, Ephesians
2.8. Faith is authored and finished
by Christ, Hebrews 12.2. It's the fruit of the Spirit,
Galatians 5.22. And it is the result, faith in
the sinner is the result of being chosen from the beginning to
salvation by God, 2 Thessalonians 2.13. So our works are not only not the cause of
salvation, but do you see our word grace in verse 7? Remember
the word grace in verse 7. Our works all through the New
Testament, all through the scriptures, are directly set in opposition
to grace. Remember again these words from
our text, they which have believed. Grace and works but they which
have believed. When considering those who have
not believed, when considering how those sinners are to be saved,
if they are to be saved, grace and works are seen to be opposites
in the word of God. It's important that we see this
first. Grace and works are opposites. Listen to Romans 11 5. Even so
then at this present time also there is a remnant according
to the election of grace, Paul is saying there that God, just
like in the days of Elijah, the only ones that aren't idolaters. Elijah said everybody, I'm the
only one left. And God said, nope, I've reserved.
I've reserved a few. Maybe it was 3,000, wasn't it?
I've reserved some that haven't yet. I did something and so you're
not the only one. What did he do? He lifted a people. That's what Paul is saying according
to the election of grace and listen to what he said and if
by grace we mean there's no more of works Otherwise grace is no
more grace if you add one work If it's all and religion will
do this now, they're doing it right now as we sit here this
morning. I'm telling you they're doing They've been doing it from
the beginning and they were doing it when I was sitting there with
them And they're doing it right now. What are they doing? They're
saying, oh, salvation is all free grace. But you have to do
this. You have to believe. You have
to make a decision. You have to come down the front.
If you add a work, it's not grace anymore. But if it be of works, then it
is no more grace. Otherwise, work is no more work.
They are opposites. They can't be mixed. So that's
before salvation, considering how can I be saved? Grace and
works are opposites. But also, even after we do believe,
even after we do lay hold of Christ, even after we do experience
His justification freely by His grace through the redemption
that's in Christ, we are never to consider our works, good or
otherwise, to be meritorious. In other words, earning any favor
with God or adding anything to the work or righteousness of
Christ. For one thing, those who are perfect in Christ's righteousness
don't need meritorious works of their own. And for another
thing, all of even what is called our good works in Scripture are
full of sin. Our faith is full of unbelief.
Our love is fickle and weak at best. Our service is unreliable
and according to God, even when we've done everything we're supposed
to do, were unprofitable service. Our righteousness is still as
believers, as Isaiah said, are as filthy rags. Look at a passage
of scripture with me that's not written to unbelievers. This
is written to the church. Turn to Galatians chapter 3. I want us to see now those words
after that they have believed. We're looking at that and we're
going to look at that in a minute more closely. Those that have
believed, they which have believed. But even when you have believed,
your works are never meritorious before God. Look at Galatians
3 verse 1. O foolish Galatians, who have
bewitched you? that you should not obey the
truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set
forth crucified among you. You've seen Christ crucified.
You've heard the gospel. You've seen that your only hope
is a crucified Savior. You've been told clearly and
say you believe that by the works of the law shall no flesh be
justified, but only through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus
shall we justify freely by his grace. But this only would I
learn of you then, seeing that he has been set forth clearly,
evidently among you, received you the spirit by the works of
the law or by the hearing of faith. Did God open your eyes
to Christ crucified because of something you did? Or was it his gift? Are you so foolish, verse 3,
having begun in the Spirit? Are you now made perfect by the
flesh? You see, you claim to be believers,
and if you have begun in the Spirit, if God has saved you
by His Spirit, the Spirit who blows where He will, if He's
come to you and you're born again, are you made perfect now by the
flesh? Are you going to, you know, His work got you so far,
but then you've got to finish on your own? Verse 4, Have ye
suffered so many things in vain, if it be yet in vain? He therefore
that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you,
doth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
Does anything that God does, and anything that He has accomplished
in the work of salvation, does it have to do with your works
in any way? Verse 6, Even as Abraham believed
God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness, know ye
therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children
of Abraham. Everybody God gives faith to.
And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen
through faith preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying,
Indeed, shall all nations be blessed. That's what God's talking
about, not just because you're born of the seed of Abraham,
but because he's talking about who's going to believe like Abraham
did. Verse 9, So then they which be of faith are blessed with
faithful Abraham. Spiritual Israel is the seed
and heirs according to the promise. For as many as are of the works
of the law are under the curse. For it is written, Cursed is
everyone that continueeth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified
by the law in the sight of God, it is evident. For the just shall
live by faith. Faith is not a work, it's a gift. Faith is set in opposition to
works. And even after we've believed,
even as believers in Christ, We're warned and exhorted here
by Paul, don't think that somehow God has gotten you part of the
way and now you're going to finish. You've got to live the Christian
life, you know, or God will put you in hell. We have never kept
God's law and we're never going to. Verse 12, And the law is not
of faith, but the man that doeth them shall live in them. The
law has nothing to do with faith. The program that you're on, if
you're of the law, as he described here, in other words, you haven't
believed on Christ, you're of the law. You know what program
you're on? You've got to do everything that God has ever commanded perfectly. Not just outwardly, but you've
got to love His law. And love Him only and honor Him
only in your heart. Who shall ascend unto His holy
hill? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart. You don't measure
up, and neither do I. Oh, but bless God. Verse 13. You see the gospel here? It's
so beautiful. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law. Why do you want to live under
the law? Why do you want to think about your works being meritorious
before God when Christ has redeemed us from that? Redeemed us from
our sins. How did he do that? By becoming
what we are. By being made a curse for us. by taking our place on Calvary
under the wrath of God for our sin. For it is written, Cursed
is every one that hangeth on a tree. And he did that that
the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through
Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit, that
covenant, that we might be partakers in that covenant of grace that
he made with Abraham through faith. by believing on
Christ, by trusting Christ as our righteousness and abandoning
all of our own as Paul did in Philippians chapter 3. Now also we need to understand
that those who have believed must be careful to maintain good
works. Can we say what we just said
and understand this? By God's grace we can and we
must. We are to be careful to maintain good works. And here's
the question that's screaming to be asked and answered. Why? Why in the world do we need to
be careful to maintain good works if they're full of sin anyway?
If all of my good works are full of sin, if God can't accept them,
then why do them? If Christ is our righteousness,
if he is all of our righteousness, if he is our only righteousness
before God, then why are we careful to maintain good works? I give
you several reasons from the word of God. And you see that
we should, you know we should, it's pretty clear in the scripture
there isn't it? And it's not the only place where it says
that. You know that we must, we must maintain good works.
You see in our text how that though grace and works are enemies
when it comes to the saving of a sinner, once that sinner is
saved, grace and works are friends. In these two verses, they go
together beautifully, don't they? We are justified by grace and
we are careful to maintain good works. That's a beautiful combination
now. Grace and works go together like
pie and ice cream when considered in this sense. But why this care
to maintain that which is flawed and unreliable and unacceptable
to God? Why must we be careful to maintain
that? Number one, because we love him. Our Lord said, if you love me, I'll tell you this. If he justified
you freely, by his grace, through the precious blood of his son,
and you know it, you love him. If you love me, do what I say. Keep my commandment. Do you need a better reason than
that? You know, I've never heard a
person now, and I know quite a few of them, that apparently
are believers in doctrine rather than Christ. And I've never heard
them ever explain with any coherence whatsoever why good works are
so important in the word of God. Have you? Because clearly they
are. Paul says be ready to every good
work. Be careful to maintain good works. We agree Those that I know who I believe
and who quite evidently seem to have embraced doctrine rather
than the Son of God. I agree with them that our works
have nothing to do with salvation. We agree that God can't accept
them for righteousness. Then why does Paul And I'll give
you another example of it. In the book of Ephesians, why
does the Apostle Paul for three full chapters in the book of
Ephesians, the first three chapters, declare over and over and over
how unworthy we are and how we must be saved by grace we are
so unworthy. Why then does he say in chapter
four, I beseech you that you walk worthy, you unworthy ones,
walk worthy of the calling. What is your calling? We are careful to maintain that
which cannot please God, cannot save us or add one whit to our
salvation or our relationship with God. Why is it so important? For people, think of it this
way, why is it so important for people who are perfect and spotless
and holy in Christ, who are without blemish before God in Christ,
why is it so important for us to do these things that are full
of blemishes? If you love me, that's fine.
And by his grace, I do. Secondly, he's worthy. I'm gonna fall short every time.
Every time. And it seems like I fall farther
short the older I get. But he's worthy of everything
I got in life. He's worthy of so much better.
I know that my worship, being full of sin, is unworthy of Him.
But if He says, where two or three are gathered in my name,
there I am in the midst of them. What a spitting in His face it
is not to even bother to show up. And I don't want to spit in His
face anymore. How about you? I've done it so many times. Showing up is full of sin, but
not showing up? And I'm not talking about just
your attendance record. There's a whole lot more to showing
up than just being in the building on Sunday morning and Wednesday
night, isn't there? And thirdly, and related to the second one,
we want to honor Him because of the first two, because He's
worthy and because we love Him. Don't you want to honor Him?
Paul said in Romans 7, the things that I would do, I don't do them.
But he did say I would do them. How about you? I sure won't do
them. We say with the Apostle Paul,
God forbid that I should glory, save him Christ crucified, and
then we turn around and glory in the flesh every day. But we
still say it, don't we? God forbid. Don't let me glory
in myself, or anybody else, or anything anybody's ever done.
May the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God crucified
for sinners, be all of the object of my glorying, my boasting,
my worship. The flesh indeed lusts against
the spirit, but the spirit also lusts against the flesh, and
insists that Christ is worthy of our best. Our best, pathetic
though it be, is worthy of our best. Fourthly, and boy you talk about wonderful. Every once in a while
I say something wonderful. You know why? Because I say what
God says. Our Lord is able to take that
which is flawed and ineffectual and unprofitable in every other
sense and do great things with it. How many examples of that do
we have in the Word of God and in our lives? Aren't you glad
of that? Think about this. It pleased
God by the foolishness of what I'm doing right now, what we're
doing right now. It pleased God by this foolishness
to save sinners who believe on Him. How can God take such a flawed
and unworthy, and let's just be honest, evil bunch of wretches and use them to save another
evil unworthy wretch. Well, it just pleases him to
do it. I don't know what else to say about it. He does it because
he wants to. Because he can and he wants to.
I used to think that the word foolishness there, by the foolishness
of preaching God saves, I used to think the foolishness there
was only used because the world calls it foolishness, and they
did. They call the preaching of Christ's foolishness unto
the Greeks, which is every self-righteous sinner represented by the Greeks,
foolishness. But you know, I think that word
foolishness also has something to do with the one performing
it, the one preaching. But let's look at the context
of these words and we'll see why it's powerful, why it's the
power of God. The gospel preached is the power
of God unto salvation. But I'm a fool, you're a fool,
and we can't have say anything right. So what's the point of
all this? I'll show you what, 1 Corinthians
chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 21. This is the context of the verse
I just quoted. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. Now, don't miss the
first part of the verse now. You can never, by your own wisdom,
understand God. You're not going to get it. He just got through saying the
natural man Or he's fixing to say in chapter
2 also, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God. You're not going to get it. You're not of your own wisdom
and understanding. Oh, but I've been studying the
Bible all my life. It doesn't matter as far as this goes now. You're not going to have God
reveal to you that way. You're not going to understand
and know God by your learning, by your knowledge, by your wisdom. But how's God going to reveal
it to us then? By the foolishness of preaching. Well, how does
he do that? Well, let's talk about first
of all this. The Jews require a sign. That's
why they didn't care about the Lord. The Son of God himself
came preaching and they wouldn't listen to him. Why? Because they're
looking for some outward show. They still are. They still are. The Jews represent this religious
world. who are looking for somebody
that can heal them, looking for a big show in the flesh, looking
for a spectacle, you know, of somebody standing up there touching
people's heads and people are falling over, or somebody says
a couple of words and 5,000 people come down to the front. They're
looking for the outward spectacle of religion. And the Greeks seek after wisdom. The Greeks were the philosophers.
They were going to figure out the reason for everything. You
know what the reason for everything is? Christ. Christ is the answer
to every question worth asking. You know that, don't you? Where did all this come from?
Philosophers ask that all the time. Without him was not anything
made that was made. What's the purpose of man? Christ. What's the meaning of life? Christ.
Well, how does it all end? Christ. The Jews, and they represent
religion too, they're trying to figure out, oh, we've got
to cross every T and dot every I. Salvation is a person. For the
Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But
we don't give them either one. We don't give either one of them
what they're looking for. But we are giving them what will
save them. Because we preach Christ crucified. Unto the Jews a stumbling block,
because they're not looking for a crucified Redeemer. They're looking for a spectacle
of some kind. They're looking for an outward show of religion.
They're looking to earn salvation by what they do. And unto the
Greeks, foolishness. But unto them which are called,
whom he did foreknow, them he also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of his Son, and whom he did predestinate, them
he also called. Everybody that he loved from
eternity, everybody that he predestinated from eternity, He called, and
unto them Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. That's why God uses this, the
declaring of Him, the declaration of a person and what He did for
sinners. By that means, Paul said in Romans
1, it's the power of God, this gospel of Him, Christ and Him
crucified. is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believes it. Fifthly, why? Because God is glorified in what
his people do. Matthew chapter 5, let's look
at two verses of scripture and I'm through. Matthew 5, Matthew 5.13, you are the salt of the earth. Wait a minute Chris, you just
got through saying we can't do anything that's not sin. Yeah,
that's true. Also true, you're the salt of
the earth. I'm not here to explain this
to you now, I'm just going to declare it to you. God will have
to reveal it to you. And to me too. But if the salt
hath lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? How is this
world going to be worth anything without you in it? Is that what
God just said? If you don't think so, maybe look
at it again. What use is this world? What good is it? It is
thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be
trodden underfoot of men. That's the salt that has no savor.
And that's that which is salted with that which has no savor.
Useless, worthless. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill
cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle
and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick. And it giveth
light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before
me. Your light? What is my light? What is your light? Were you
born with some light? The Lord Jesus Christ said you're
the light of the world, but you know what else he said? I am
the light of the world. And you know in what sense I'm
the light of the world is that I reflect some of his light. If I say what he said, If I glorify
Him in what I do and not myself. Let your light so shine before
men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father
which is in heaven. Does that sound important to
you? It kind of does, doesn't it? It
kind of does. John 15 verse 5. John 15, 5, I am the vine, you
are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I
in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. You see, in what
sense we're the light of the world? In what sense does the
branch have life? It abides in the vine. In what
sense am I light? He's my light. Let your light
so shine, what is my light? Him. What is my life? What is my life source? My hope
of fruitfulness of any kind? Christ, divine. He that abideth in me, verse
5, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without
me, you can do nothing. You know, there's a clue there
as to how somebody that can't do anything good can do something
good. Without me, you can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he
is cast forth as a branch and is withered, and men gather them
and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide
in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will,
and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified,
that you bear much fruit. So shall you be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me,
so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. So grace and works, they are
opposites and they are compatriots also.
And we must understand now, we must understand because it's
important, it's important that we not mix works and grace. That
we in the matter of salvation, justification before God, we
see Christ alone as the cause of our salvation as the Savior himself. In every
sense, salvation is of the Lord. Nothing we do has anything to
do with it. Before or after we're converted. But it's also clearly important
in our text and in the others we've seen that we understand
Not only in what sense grace and works are enemies, but we
need to understand in what sense they are great friends. You see how they go together
beautifully in our text and how greatly they clashed in Romans
11. And may God give us grace and understanding as we think
on these things and act accordingly. May he give
us grace. That's pretty good.