Alright, brethren, let's turn
to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. Verse 4 says, But God, who is
rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even
when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ,
by grace ye are saved, and hath raised us up together and made
us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the
ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace
in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. My subject is undeserved. I hit on this thought a little
bit Thursday night, and I want to develop it some more. That one word, undeserved, describes
our salvation. And it describes everything that
God does for us. Undeserved. Undeserved. God's electing us to salvation
was undeserved. God sending his own son to lay
down his life for us and redeem us was completely undeserved
by us. The Lord predestinating us to
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ, we didn't merit that.
That was undeserved. Him sending the Spirit, giving
you life, giving you faith, giving you all things that pertain to
life and godliness, completely, totally undeserved. The Lord
preserving us, correcting us, keeping us, keeping us looking
only to Christ. We don't merit that as believers. That's undeserved to us even
as sanctified, holy children of God. When we face death and
the Lord brings us through death and He raises His child, and
gives us a new body and causes us to be with Him in glory forever,
we will say, we will see then fully, completely, perfectly,
everything about our salvation was undeserved. Everything. And here was the thought I touched
on Thursday night. He says here, He saved us that
in the ages to come, from the day He calls you all the way
through eternity, that in the ages to come He might show the
exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through
Christ Jesus. Now how do you see that? Well,
in proportion to how we see, in proportion as we see how undeserving
we are. in proportion as we see how sinful
we are in ourselves, in proportion as we see how fully Christ has
redeemed us, and how fully we're accepted in the Beloved. That's
how we begin to see the exceeding riches of God's kindness toward
us through Christ Jesus. It's one of the reasons the Lord
has left us in this body of death and is continually saving us
all our days is because he's continually growing us in the
understanding of just how undeserving we are of all his mercies and
of every aspect of salvation. Paul said this, he said, the
law entered that the offense might abound. And when he makes
you hear the law, you see your offenses, they begin to abound
to you. And he said, but where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. That as sin reigned unto death. Even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. He's
our righteousness, He's our life, He's the one that's reigning
in His people, reigning for His people in working things out
in this world, and it's by Him, brethren, that we're made to
see how far exceeding His grace has abounded over our sin. And this is what really humbles
us and really makes us to behold how exceedingly rich God's been
to us. exceedingly rich He's been to
us. And the amazing thing about this is, you know, a natural
man would think, why do you want to hear about your sin? Why do
you want to hear that there's nothing good in you? And that
would just make me sorrow. Well, it does make us sorrow.
It makes us mourn over what we are. But it's the amazing thing
and the paradox of grace is this. As he causes us to sorrow due
to our sin, he fills us with the greatest rejoicing to behold
we are complete in Christ and accepted in Christ. How these
two things can be, a natural man never enters into. But you
know something of this. You see your sorrow because of
your sin, but how you rejoice as you behold God's riches to
you in Christ Jesus. These two things are always present
in God's people. And the more we see our sin,
and the more we see His abundant goodness to us, the more we rejoice
to be found in Christ alone. God who's rich in mercy, rich
in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us even when
we were dead in sins. That shows us it's not of us,
it's all according to his mercy. He loved us even when we were
dead in sins. We see it was not we who gave
ourselves life. He said God hath quickened us
together with Christ, by grace you're saved. And the more you
see yourself, and the more you see how to this day, as a sanctified
child of God, you need God to turn you to Christ right now
today. That just makes you know more
and more, it wasn't me that brought me to Christ. It wasn't me that
gave myself life and faith. It's the Lord. By grace you're
saved. You begin to see the exceeding
riches of God's kindness toward us in that He has raised us up
together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. Oh, that God would give us the
faith to see how true this is, brethren. This is what we saw
last Sunday, that your life really is there in Christ at God's right
hand. That's where our righteousness
is. That's where our acceptance is. He is our righteousness,
and we're there with Him. When He comes, we'll reign with
Him in glory. And you began to see all of this
by beholding what you are. At no point, there's absolutely
no point in a believer's life when we stop needing to be saved
by God's grace. There's no point in our life
where we can stand on our own. We are kept by the power of God.
Christ sat down with publicans and sinners to eat. And the Pharisees,
they had got to where, you know, they wouldn't have a thing to
do with a sinner and a publican. And they murmured at that, and
they asked, why does your master, why does he sit and eat with
publicans and sinners? And our Lord, knowing all things,
he knew they murmured, he knew what they were saying, and our
Lord said this. He said, a person that's whole,
he doesn't need a physician. Are you whole yet? We're not
whole yet. We're complete in Christ, and
we have a new man that's holy and united to Christ and will
never be separated from Christ. But are we whole yet? Not yet. We won't be complete in ourselves
until we're with him in glory. And those that are whole, they
don't need a physician. But those that are sick, And
he said to them, he said, you go learn what that meaneth. I
will have mercy and not sacrifice. That doesn't just mean he's calling
you by mercy. That doesn't just mean he redeems
you by mercy though. It is by his mercy that he did
that. That means from the beginning to the end, he will have mercy
on his people. He will save us by his mercy
and not sacrifice. What do you have that you could
give to God? There's nothing you can give to God. Everything's
His and He gave you everything. What are we going to give to
God? There's nothing we can give to God. He came to save us by
His mercy to break our heart, to keep our hearts contrite.
And here's what the sacrifices of God are. When you have a broken
and contrite heart and you see the exceeding riches of His grace
and His kindness to you, you give Him praise and you glory
in Him and you thank Him for what He's done for you. And He
said that's the sacrifices God's pleased with. He said, I came not to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance. Now I want to look at this in
a few ways. First of all, the effect that God's free and sovereign
grace has to us, upon us, when we behold Christ, His mercy toward
us, His forgiveness for Christ's sake. When you see what He's
done for you, and the more you see this, Scripture tells us
it makes us hate our own selves for our sins. Makes us hate our
own selves for our sins. Let's see that in Ezekiel 36.
Ezekiel 36. He said here in verse 25. We'll
read down to verse 31. I want you to see what he says
here. He says, talking about when he cleanses us, regenerates
us, he says, then will I sprinkle, verse 25, Ezekiel 36, 25, then
will I sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean from
all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse
you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I
put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your
flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh." Notice it's all, I
will. That's the will by whom we're
saved, God's will. And he says, I'm going to take
out of you this hard heart, and I'm going to give you a heart
that feels. I'm going to give you a feeling heart. I'm going
to give you a soft heart. And he says there, and I will
put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes,
and you shall keep my judgments and do them. It doesn't mean
you're going to be able to keep the law of Sinai in a righteousness
God requires. It means He's going to keep you
believing on Christ. He's going to keep you loving
one another. He's going to keep you humbled by His grace and
rejoicing in mercy. All the things Christ teaches
us, washing one another's feet, He's going to keep you doing
those things. trusting Christ alone as your
righteousness. He said, and you should dwell
in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my
people, and I will be your God. I will also save you from all
your uncleanness. This is throughout the rest of
our days. Christ said that he that's been
washed by Christ is clean every whit, but he said you still need
your feet washed. And he's going to keep cleansing
us from all our uncleanness, all our days as we become defiled
as we walk through this earth. And I'll call for the corn and
we'll increase it and lay no famine upon you. We saw the other
night God's children will never be without Christ the bread.
And he'll provide everything else you need. And he says, and
I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the increase of
the field that you shall receive no more reproach or famine among
the heathen. Now what should be the effect
of God's grace and forgiveness when he's worked this? Here's
my point right here. Then shall you remember your
own evil ways and your doings that were not good and shall
loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and
for your abominations. God's going to bring us to hate
our sin nature, and hate the sin that is produced by our sin
nature. And He does this by working this
work of grace, giving you a new heart, and forgiving you all
your sin, and making you behold what He's done for you in Christ.
And what happens when He does that? When He shows you it's
for Christ's sake alone that He's worked this in you, It makes
us remember our own evil ways. The best way for us to see that
we have not produced a righteousness that God's pleased with is to
see Christ our righteousness. When we see His perfect obedience,
He never once murmured against God's providence. He never once
murmured and returned evil back to those that reproached Him.
He believed God perfectly, he committed himself to the care
of the Father perfectly, and he did so even to the death of
the cross. Even when men nailed him to the
cross, spat upon him, beat him, sat down and watched him, and
just longed for him to just suffer, suffer, suffer. He never sinned
one time. Now he bore our sins, and he
put our sins away while he did that, but he himself never sinned. Want to see our own evil ways? Just look at Christ's perfect
ways. See how perfectly righteous he is. That's how we see how
sinful we are. And beholding him, and the more
we behold him, the more we loathe our own selves in our own sight. We, you know, We'll get to talking about, we'll
see the news and we'll get to talking about somebody in the
news that sinned or some wickedness that was done. But it doesn't
take very long for God to remind you, you're just looking at yourself. And because he's going to keep
his child loathing our own selves, for our own iniquities. That's
when we become ashamed and confounded for our own ways. And then, as
you see, God saves by grace. He said there in verse 32, it's
not for your sakes that I do this. Ezekiel 36, 32, it's not
for your sakes that I do this, saith the Lord God, be it known
to you. Be ashamed and confounded for
your own ways, O house of Israel. Why does he do it? From the day
he's called you. and made you see, and he keeps
showing you over and over, he's showing you nothing God has done
for us has been for our own sakes. We didn't merit it. It's not
because we repented. It's not because we believed.
That's the fruit of what God did for us. He produced that
in us. It's not even because we were
sorrowful and we were in a wretched state that God did this for us.
God did it for His namesake. He did it for His glory. He did
it to give Christ the preeminence. It's undeserved. Salvation is
undeserved. And brethren, this is what God's
teaching us more and more. That everything God's ever done
for us is undeserved. It's to glorify Christ. Now turn
to Ezekiel 16. Ezekiel 16. This is also, not only does God
bring us to loathe ourselves, this is how God shuts our mouth
from glorying in ourselves. He shuts our mouth. He makes
us glory only in the Lord. Look here at Ezekiel 16 and in
verse 59. For thus saith the Lord God,
I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which has despised
the oath and breaking the covenant. Now what the Lord is teaching
here is, he's teaching them there was no difference in Judah and
the ten tribes and the Gentiles. who He will save. The elect in
Judah, the elect in the ten tribes, and the elect among the Gentiles,
He showed in the previous verses there, there's no difference
in any of them. No difference in any of us whatsoever. And
then the Lord declares here, He's saying there that we despised
and broke His covenant. He's telling the Jews they did
it just like the Gentiles did it that never even had the law.
They broke, we all broke God's covenant in the garden. So there's
no difference in any of us, but look at what he says in verse
60. Nevertheless, I will remember my covenant with thee in the
days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting
covenant. Then thou shalt remember thy
ways and be ashamed when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thine
elder and thy younger, and I will give them unto thee by daughters.
That is, I'm gonna give you your brethren or your sisters from
among Jew and Gentile, that's what he's talking about, but
not by thy covenant. I'm not gonna do this because
you kept covenant with me. He said, you broke my covenant.
He said, I will establish my covenant with thee. That's the
good news. I will establish my covenant
with thee, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord, that thou
mayest remember and be confounded, now look, and never open thy
mouth anymore because of thy shame. When I am pacified toward
thee for all that thou hast done, sayeth the Lord God. You see,
everybody that God saves, Jew and Gentile, rich, poor, male,
female, educated, uneducated, it don't matter where we come
from, what our background is, what our situation is, everybody
God saves, there is no difference in us whatsoever. That's what's
going to help us shut our mouths from boasting in ourselves is
to see there's no difference in us. The very worst sinner
you can think of, there's no difference in them and you. There's
no difference in them and me. We have all sinned and come short
of the glory of God. That's what shuts our mouth.
That's how he makes us receive our brethren no matter where
they're coming from, no matter what their background, no matter
who they are in the flesh. He makes you stop regarding the
flesh in a positive way or a negative way because you see the flesh
really does profit nothing. And he makes us to know it's
in Christ that we're one. It's in Christ that we have all. And he says here, that makes
us shut our mouths. And he's talking here from boasting.
We're not going to boast anymore in anything we did. He won't
let his child keep boasting in our will. He won't let us boast
in our decision for Christ. He won't let us boast that we
did anything to merit salvation. He won't let us boast that we
did anything to cause God to show mercy to us or grace to
us. That wouldn't be grace. That wouldn't be mercy. God makes us see that he's pacified
toward us. He's propitiated toward us. Because
Christ Jesus came and stood in the place of each one he saves.
And on that cross, he bore exactly what you deserve, child of God. Whatever elect child of God deserved. And Christ did not deserve it. We deserved it. But Christ did
not deserve that wrath in himself, but because he willingly submitted
to be made sin for us. When he submitted himself and
the Lord laid on him the iniquity of all his people, now hear this,
then he deserved it. and he deserved it. Men will
hear that and they'll say, well now he died the just for the
unjust. He laid down his life the just
for the unjust. He went to the Garden of Gethsemane
the just, the sinless Lamb of God. But what his whole purpose
was was submitting himself to have the sins of his people laid
on him. And when God did that, Then God
did that so God would be just to pour out wrath on him. That's
the whole purpose of him coming, was to manifest God's righteousness.
So now with the sins of his people on him, he deserved for God to
pour out justice on him. And God did. And raised him from
the grave because he satisfied justice. Death couldn't hold
him. The grave couldn't hold him. The wages of sin is death.
He put sin away. The grave couldn't hold our Redeemer. child of God, the grave can't
hold you either. That's what having eternal life is. The grave
can't touch you. Your body is going to go back
to the grave because it's sin. But what Christ has created will
never die because he created it in his righteousness. And
that body he's going to raise and give a new body, incorruptible,
and it'll be his creation and it'll never die. but the grave
could, and he's given all this to us abundantly, undeserved
in us. He took what we deserve, what
he didn't deserve by nature, and bore it for us that he might
give us all the righteousness and grace we do not deserve. and that's what he's done. That
shuts our mouth from boasting. That makes us, as the writer
said, he that glories, let him glory in the Lord. Let him glory
in the Lord. Now here's the next thing I want
you to see. Turn over to Psalm 103. Psalm 103. This work of teaching us this
and growing us in this knowledge of Christ, it doesn't stop when
he's giving you faith. He's saving us beginning and
end by teaching us more of what Christ has accomplished and who
He is and what He's working for us. And He's doing this against
the antagonist of the sins of our own flesh and the sinners
we face in this world and the devil's opposition. And He's showing us more and
more what He's doing for us and how He's saving us the riches
of His mercies to us even though we are yet sinners. Look here
now, Psalm 103.10. David's a believer here writing
this and he's talking about what the Lord has done for us and
not just what He did in the beginning but what He does throughout our
days. He says here, verse 10, He hath not dealt with us after
our sins. Psalm 103, 10. He hath not dealt
with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy
toward them that fear Him. Does a sanctified child of God
who's been given the fear of the Lord, reverence for the Lord,
does he yet need God's mercies? Is he yet a sinner? Ask one of
them. We can attest to that, can't
we? Yes, he's yet a sinner. This is the difference between
self-made religion and true religion. This is the difference. God's
child will tell you, I am a sinner. I am a sinner in need of God's
grace and mercy constantly. I need to be saved for me today.
I need to be saved for me every day. Now, because he's given
us a fear and a reverence for God, We hate sin, we saw that
already. We loathe our own selves and
we loathe our sins. Our mouth's been shut from glowing
in anything in us because we see how undeserving we are of
His grace. And we want to please our Redeemer
in everything because His love constrains us in our heart. We
see what He's done for us. And we desire truly from a new
heart to please Him, to walk before Him, do whatever He teaches
us to do. We really and truly want to honor
Him in all things. And that's what we continue in
by His grace. But this is also true. Our sins
are ever before us. That's by his grace too. He keeps
you seeing your sins and keeps you knowing you are the sinner
and that you need his mercies every day. The difference is
God's child sees God has not dealt with us according to what
we deserve. Look there. He hadn't dealt with
us according to what we deserve. Verse 10. He's not dealt with
us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
Who was it? Was it Ezra or Ezekiel? I think it was Ezekiel that when
the Lord had chastened Israel for their sins and he said, Lord,
even in your correction, he said, you've not given us what we deserve.
You've withheld from us what we really deserve. He hasn't
dealt with us after our sins. For as the heaven is high above
the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. This
is what He's showing us over and over. And when you see your
sins are great and how your sins have abounded, and then you see
how His mercy is much more abound and His grace is much more abounded,
that's when you see His mercies are high as the heavens. we'll
start to mark iniquities in our brethren. You do that, and I
do that. We shouldn't do that, but we
do. And we'll start to mark iniquities in our brethren. And the Lord
will remind you of this. Could you stand if the Lord did
that for you? If he marked your iniquities,
could you stand? Psalm 103 in verse, I mean, First
thing is Psalm 110. He said, If thou, Lord, should
mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? but there's forgiveness
with thee that thou mayest be feared." The more we see God
dealing with us in mercy, the more we see God forgiving us
for the sake of Christ our righteousness, the more he grows us in fear
for him, reverence for him. The more he grows you in fear
of judging one for whom Christ died, who Christ says, I'm his
righteousness, who Christ says, he's complete in me. He grows
you in a fear of condemning such a one. He makes you just want
to give the benefit of the doubt that that's God's child, because
you don't want to condemn one for whom Christ died, because
you have a fear of the Lord. The more that we behold Christ's
mercies and power to make us personally stand. Have you experienced
his power to make you stand? There's some sitting here, and
you're looking at the chief who I wouldn't have thought we'd
still be here. I couldn't stand if it wasn't for God's grace.
And He's made you stand. What has He shown you by that?
He's able to make your brother stand. He's your brother's master
and he's able to make him stand. And he gives you a fear in your
heart because he's forgiven you and not dealt with you according
to your sins, but has forgiven you in great, great mercy. And
that makes you know he's made you stand, he'll make your brother
stand. And he gives you a fear not to
try to be the master over him. He got one master, that's the
Lord. He keeps showing you great mercy
and forgiveness for Christ's sake. That's what makes us delight
in mercy and forgiveness. Now, I feel like I have to say
this because it's just become apparent to
me that, you know, don't think that you will not
be unmerciful. You will be unmerciful at times.
You will be unforgiving at times. Brethren will become unmerciful
and unforgiving. But how's the Lord gonna save
you out of that? How's he gonna save you out of
that? He's going to show you your sin. He's going to show
you that if He marked iniquities in you, there's no way you could
stand. He'll bring you somehow, somewhere,
sometime into a situation where you personally are going to see
again what a sinner you are. And He's going to show His child
again what great, great mercy He's shown you. And by doing
that, and showing you this, there's forgiveness with thee that thou
mayest be feared. He gonna grow you in a reverence
for him for having forgiven you. Do you know this? The only way
you can forgive your brethren is if you fear the Lord. You
cannot forgive your brethren if you don't have a fear of the
Lord. It's impossible. It's impossible. Without the
fear of God, we can't forgive, and we can't show mercy. But
we have this fear, and we're grown in reverence by God, by
Him showing us His mercy for Christ's sake every day. That's how we're given this reverence
in the first hour, and that's how He grows it, is He keeps
showing you what great forgiveness He's shown you for Christ's sake.
Like Jeremiah said, it's of the Lord's mercies that we're not
consumed, because His compassions fail not. They're new every morning. Every morning, every day, every
hour, He's showing you new mercies. New mercies, because His faithfulness
is great. That's why He's doing it. The
problem we run into in forgiving another. Are you still there
in Psalm 103? The problem we run into in forgiving another
is because we know the one needing forgiveness has sinned. And so we began to think, well,
it wouldn't be just to be merciful to him. Well, how is God just
to show you mercy and forgive you when you sin? Is God just
to show you mercy when you sin? Yeah. How? Look at Psalm 103,
12. As far as the East is from the
West, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us. That's why He's just, to forgive
you. God doesn't do anything but what's just. And he's just
to forgive us because Christ has come. And as far as the East
is from the West, so far has he removed the transgression
of his people from us. God created North, South, East,
and West. He created a compass. He gave
men the wisdom to understand a compass. Do you think God did
that just so you wouldn't get lost when you're traveling? He
did it so that when you look at how far the East and the West
are from one another, He can show you that's how far I've
removed your transgression from you. Everything's created by
Christ and for Christ. It's all for His preeminence.
Next time you ask somebody for directions or you look at a compass
or a map and you think of north, south, east, and west, you remember
that right there. As far as the east is from the
west, that's how far Christ has removed our transgressions from
us. God's just to forgive the sins of His people because Christ
paid the debt we owe to justice. He paid it. He paid it in full. The only just thing for God to
do is to show His people mercy. And that is the just thing. That's
why God will show His child mercy. I was just talking to your uncle,
Cale, the other day, and we was talking about this, about how
the law is the friend of God's people. Justice is the friend
of God's people. The law bears witness that Christ
has given the law all the righteousness it demands. And not only that,
the law bears witness that because His people were in Christ, we've
given the law everything it demands. both in perfect righteousness
and obeying it, and in perfect justice and being punished for
not obeying it. We gave the law everything it
demands in the Lord Jesus Christ. So the law now, the justice of
God now, is the friend of a believer. We delight that God's just because
it's a just and right thing for God to be merciful to us because
Christ has put our sin away. That's why Next time a brother
or sister sin and you see their sin, you remember this, you get
alone with God and you ask God to remind you what he's done
for you and how it's just for God to be merciful to you and
you just know this, the just thing for you to do is be merciful
and forgive your brethren. put it away as far as the east
is from the west. You and me can't do that, but
you can by His grace forgive. You can by His grace forgive.
Child of God, when you fall, It's just for God to show you
mercy and forgive you. When you see your sins, when
you see for God you deserve, for God to cast you out forever,
what restores peace to your inward man? What is it that restores
faith in you and stirs you up in love? What is it that does
it? God draws you to Christ's wounded feet. He draws you to
see your wounded substitute on Calvary's tree, bearing what
you deserve, and He makes you know, for His sake, I've forgiven
you. For His sake, I've been merciful
to you. That rejoices your heart. That delights your heart. This
is that paradox that a natural man can't get, that how could
something so sorrowful Loathing yourself, loathing your sin.
At the same time, there'd be just this abundant rejoicing
and happiness over what God's done. David described the blessedness
of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works.
Just, oh, just think of that. God accounts you righteous without
you doing one thing. Why? Christ did it all. Christ
did it all. He said, Blessed are they whose
iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is
the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. The Lord will
not impute sin to one of his children. He just won't do it. He just won't do it. Well, don't
they need to be corrected? He'll correct them. He'll correct
them. You know how he's going to do
it? Drawing them to Christ to show his sins are forgiven for
his sake. So what ought I to do for my
brother? Speak this very word right here
and remind them Christ has put away the sin of his people. That's
what's going to be used by God to draw them to the cross of
Christ, to see Christ, to see there's forgiveness with Him,
that they may fear Him and reverence Him, hit their face, shut their
mouth, loathe themselves, loathe their sins, and rejoice in what
God's done for them and walk after Him. That's what it does. That's it. I got one more point. I'm out
of time. I didn't even look at the time. Look at Daniel 9.18. I just want you to see this real
quick. I won't even talk about it. I'll just show it to you.
Daniel 9.18. You know it's this mercy, it's
this forgiveness that makes you draw near to God and pour your
heart out to Him. Look here. He says in verse 18,
He's praying, oh my God, incline thine ear in here, open thine
eyes and behold our desolations and the city which is called
by thy name. Now watch, for we do not present our supplications
before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies. O
Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hearken
and do! Defer not, for thine own sake,
O my God, for thy city and thy people are called by thy name."
You see that? He said, we're not drawing near
to you and supplicating and pouring out our heart to you and asking
you to save us. We're not doing this because
the righteousness is in us. That's not why we're drawing
near. Why are we drawing near? Because of your mercies. Men
were scared to death of the Pharisees. They wouldn't draw near the Pharisees.
They were scared to death of them because they knew they'd
judge them and condemn them. But they would come to Christ
and fall down and pour out their heart and their need to Christ.
Why? Because of His mercies. It's
His mercies that make you come to Him. It's His mercies that
make you willing to come near to Him and to pour out your heart
to Him. You see, brethren, everything's
undeserved. And the more you see this, the
more you see how great God is, how greatly He is worthy to be
praised. Listen to this from Psalm 36.5.
Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens. That's how high His
mercy is. Thy faithfulness reacheth to
the clouds. Thy righteousness is like the
great mountains. Thy judgments are great deep.
O Lord, Thou preservest man and beast. How excellent is Thy lovingkindness,
O God! Therefore the children of men
put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings. This is what makes
us draw near to Him. This is what makes us trust Him.
is beholding what He has done for us in Christ and seeing the
exceeding riches of His grace toward us in His kindness in
Christ Jesus. That's what makes you worship
Him. Let's go to Him. Father, we thank
You for this Word. Thank You, Lord, for revealing
Christ to us and showing us Your abundant mercies, for showing
us that We're undeserving and everything you've done for us
is by grace. Lord, keep us seeing this. Keep us knowing this. Keep us
drawing near and trusting you. Thank you, Lord, for these abundant
riches that you've given us so freely. Thank you that you gave
your son to pay dearly that we might have these riches freely.
Lord, increase faith in us and increase a reverence for you. Increase every grace and help
us truly, Lord, to praise you continually for what you've done.
Forgive us, Father, our sins, our unforgiving, unmerciful spirit. Forgive us, Lord, for opening
our mouth. Lord, forgive us for Christ's
sake. Receive us and be merciful for
his sake, for your name's sake. It's in his name we ask it. Amen.