Let's turn in our Bibles, brethren,
to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Our subject tonight is the most
important reason for preaching. The most important reason for
preaching. I would have liked to have titled
it The Most Important Reason for the Public Preaching of Christ
and Him Crucified, just to be clear. That's a quite lengthy
title. So I've just titled it The Most
Important Reason for Preaching. Now we come to the last reason
Paul has given. He's been giving these reasons
why Christ sent his preachers to preach the gospel of Christ.
We come to this last reason, and this is the most important
reason. Let's begin reading in verse 29. Last time we looked
at verse 29 with the passage that came before it. This time
we're going to look at it with the passage that comes after
it. Verse 29. Here's the reason. that no flesh
should glory in God's presence. But of him are you in Christ
Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption, that, according as it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Now this passage
is very clear. One of the reasons, the most
important reason, God chose to save through the foolishness
of public preaching, the public preaching of Christ and Him crucified,
is because through this means God is going to make it so that
no flesh, none of His children, shall be able to glory in our
flesh. He's going to make it so that we know that it's of
God that we are in Christ. And He's going to make it so
that when we glory, we only glory in the Lord. Now that's why God
chose to save through preaching. Now today's religious world is
a lot like the children of Israel when Moses went up into the mount.
You recall Moses went up into the mount and he was gone a long
time. And they got tired of waiting. They told Aaron, oh, make us
something we can see. And so he made them an idol.
And they bowed down to that idol and they rose up to play a little
game of religion. And most folks today, what we
see in religion is folks who have grown weary of the fact
that Christ has not returned for 2015 years. And they've grown
weary of waiting on the Lord to work this work in His people
through the simple declaration of Christ and Him crucified.
And so they've created something they can see, an idol they can
see, called church. And they bow down to it, and
they worship it, and they play the little game with it. And
that's what you see going on in the majority of religion in
our day. God had an elect child in the
midst of that bunch though, at least one, Aaron, and He called
him out of it. I trust God has some more elect
today and He'll call them out too. And when He does, He's going
to do it through the preaching of Christ in Him crucified. Now
here's the first reason God chose to save through preaching. The
first reason God chose to save through preaching. He's going
to bring us to see we have no room to glory in our flesh. He's
going to make us to see it's of God that we're in Christ. Look at verse 29. that no flesh
should glory in His presence, but of Him are you in Christ
Jesus. Now most folks in religion, you
know this and I know this, it's very sad, but this is true. Most
folks in religion glory in themselves. If you ask most folks what their
hope of salvation is, they almost always begin with the word, I. Almost always begin with I. I did this, I did that, what
have you. Men write books on how to be
born again. Men speak, tell folks how they
can be made righteous, and how they can make themselves holy,
and more holy, and all of these things. But you will not find
one believer, one true believer, glorying that we made ourselves
to be born again. Because God is saying here, His
folks aren't going to do that. Because this is what God's going
to work in their heart. He's going to make you see you have
no room to glory in your flesh, but it's of God that you're in
Christ. That's what He does to the preaching
of the gospel. None of His true people are going
to glory that we converted ourselves from unbelief to faith in Christ. We're not going to boast in that.
We're not going to boast that we gave ourselves repentance
or faith. That's a gift of God. We're not
going to make our boast that we even taught ourselves the
gospel. Because we're taught of Christ
the prophet. Our prophet. We're not going
to glory in that. And we're certainly not going
to glory that we made ourselves righteous or that we made ourselves
holy or that we freed ourselves from the bondage we were in.
We don't have any room to glory. And there's one reason why we
don't glory in this. One reason only. Because through
the preaching of the gospel, God called us. And when He called
us through the preaching of the gospel, He made us to see that
no flesh shall glory in His presence. It's of God that you're in Christ
Jesus. Alright, now I want you to focus
on this phrase, in God's presence. This phrase here in verse 29.
No flesh shall glory in His presence. Now God's omnipresent. That means
God's everywhere at one time, all the time. He's everywhere.
He's in the heavens, He's in the earth, He's everywhere at
one time. But God is especially present
in the place where God has set His name to be declared. Where He sent His preacher and
gathered His people and set up His name to be declared, God
is present there. God is present there. Christ
is walking amongst the candlesticks. And it's God who blesses His
child to hear the message being preached. Now, Exodus 20-24. You don't have to turn to these
passages. You can write them down and look them up later. Let me
give them to you, because I do have a lot of Scripture I want
you to turn to. Exodus 20-24, God said this, In all places
where I record My name, I will come unto thee. and I will bless
thee." There was a lot of places that were worshiping a so-called
God, that God had not recorded His name. And God was not there,
and God was not blessing anybody. But God said, in the places where
I record My name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.
And then in Deuteronomy 12, 5, God said this. Now there was
all these places that they could go to. There's places in the
mountains, there was places in the valleys, there was places
by the streams, there was all these places men had set up to
worship their so-called God, just like we have today. But
listen to what God said. Unto the place which the Lord
your God shall choose out of all tribes to put His name there,
The place the Lord your God shall put His name there. Even unto
His habitation shall you seek. His habitation is His dwelling
place. He's saying the place where the church I've set up,
where I've put my name, that's where I'm going to dwell. There's
where you're to go. There's where you're to go. And
He said, hither thou shalt come. And He said, and there you shall
eat before the Lord your God. Before the Lord your God. I'm
trying to press upon you the fact that God's present where
His people are. He's present where He set His
name up. Listen to this. And He said there, He said, There
shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause
His name to dwell there. Thither shall you come. and ye
shall rejoice before the Lord your God. Ye, and your sons,
and your daughters, and your men's servants, and your maid's
servants, and the Levite that's within your gates." That sounds
like you should shut down all your business and go to God's
house. That's exactly right. Shut down
everything and bring everybody who's under your realm of influence
with you to the house of God. That's what he said. Now listen.
Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings
in every place that thou seest." There was as many places they
could have went to as you could go to today. But he said, don't
you go there and worship in all the places that you see, but
in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes. That's the place you go to. Now
here's why. Here's why. He spoke on the same
subject over in Deuteronomy 14 and he gave the reason why of
this. That thou mayest learn to fear the Lord thy God always. We're going to be taught the
fear of the Lord through the gospel. And God's going to do
it in person with His presence there in spirit in our hearts
doing this. And it's humbling. You know how
humbling it is to our young people just on a physical level. level,
to have to not do what you'd really rather do and go to school
and sit down under a professor and be taught by a professor
and be quiet and listen while the professor teaches you, that's
humbling to a person. It's much more so to somebody
who has to come in and sit down and be taught by the Lord in
the Lord's house. Especially when he's using nobodies
to support that gospel and nobodies to preach that gospel. That's
humbling. I often think how humbling it'll
be when I get to be so old that everybody I have to listen to
to preach is going to be younger than me. That's going to be humbling.
That's humbling in the dark. Because you sit there and think,
you know, we're so proud by nature and what we know and what have
you. And it's humbling. It's humbling. And then this
is true of this thing of His presence. God our Savior Christ
Himself is present with the preacher He sends and He's present with
the people He draws together. Look at Matthew 28. I tell you
what, you go to Matthew 18. I'll read Matthew 28 to you.
Listen to what He said in Matthew 28, 18. This is that familiar
passage. You know it. He came and He spake
to His preachers and He said, All power is given to me in heaven
and earth. And He said, Go therefore and teach them to observe all
things whatsoever I command you. And He said, Lo, I am with you
always. I am with you always. He is not
here in body now, but He is here in spirit, like He has always
been with us in spirit. God is with His preachers. Now
look here in Matthew 18, 20. He said this, Where two or three
are gathered together in my name. You know, there's a lot of places
where there's little groups here and there that just gather together
and they're preaching a lie. And the people are praising themselves
for things. Is he talking about there? No.
He's talking about where he's gathered his people. The key
here is in my name. In my name. It's where he's gathered
his people, where he is having his name declared. And he says,
and there I am in the midst of them. You see, Christ is present. He told Paul when he was preaching
at Corinth, he said, Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Speak and hold not thy peace. What was his assurance? I am
with thee. Christ said, I am with thee.
And no man is going to sit on you to hurt you because I have
much people in this city. That was Christ speaking. Now,
here is another thing about this thing of His presence. It's God
It's Christ Himself who's preaching. He's speaking. He's making it
effectual in the heart of His child. Look over to Hebrews 1.1.
This is the difference, you see, between this age and the Old
Testament age. Look here now. Hebrews 1.1. God, who at sundry times and
in different manners spake in time past unto the fathers by
the prophets. He spoke by men, but He spoke
in a lot of different ways. He spoke in a burning bush, He
spoke in the cloud, and in different ways. But now look at this. But
He hath in these last days, that's what we've been in since Christ
came, these last days. He hath in these last days spoken
to us by His Son. It's Christ speaking now. Remember
what Christ said, it's the spirit that quickens, the flesh profits
nothing. The words that I speak unto you. their spirit and their
life. This is something the religious
world does not believe. They do not believe that Christ
is really in the midst of his people just as real as when he
walked this earth, brethren. That's what I'm trying to press
upon you. He's present. He's present when he's preaching,
when his gospel is being preached. Look at Hebrews 2.1. It says, Therefore, we ought to give the
more earnest heed to the things which we've heard, lest at any
time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels
was steadfast, that's in that old covenant age, and every transgression
and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall
we escape if we neglect so great salvation which at the first
began to be spoken by the Lord? and was confirmed unto us by
them that heard him." Now watch this. God also, even after Christ
arose, it was God also bearing them witness with signs and wonders
and different miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to
His own will. And He's still doing that today. Not with the
same kind of miracles, not with the same kind of signs. But He's
doing it with the sign of saving grace, calling out His people.
And He's still speaking. Over in Hebrews 12, 25, it says,
See that you refuse not Him that speaketh currently. Speaketh. He says, If they escape not who
refused Him when He spake on this earth, how shall we escape
if we refuse Him that's now speaking from heaven? He's the one that's
doing the speaking. Now, what our text is telling
us is when God and His Son makes His presence known in our hearts,
We're going to cease glorying in our flesh. You're going to
cease glorying in our flesh. Because He's going to effectually
make you know that it's of God that you're in Christ. Now, you
think about this. Look at 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians. You think about this. You know,
when the Gospel's being preached, there's two kinds of people that's
listening. There's people that are hearing Christ speak, and
there's people just hearing the preacher preach. Well, the one
might be sitting there glorying in their flesh, the one that
just heard the preacher preach, they're going to glory. Because
they're not believing in Christ, they're not bowing to Christ,
they're thinking there's somebody and something worthy to be saved.
It's the one in whose heart Christ is speaking who's not going to
glory in His presence. The truth of the matter is, you
are made to know that you're in His presence. The ones that
are just hearing the preacher preach, they haven't been made
to know they're in His presence. He knows them, but they don't
know Him. But when He speaks in your heart, then you know,
I'm in God's presence. Now look here, 1 Thessalonians
2, 13. Paul said, For this cause also
thank we God without ceasing. Because when you receive the
Word of God, which you heard of us... He was preaching, you
see. He said, you received it not
as the Word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God,
which effectually works also in you that believe. That's what
it is. It's the Word of God and it works
effectually in His child. Look over at 2 Thessalonians
2. Scripture says, they went forth
preaching everywhere. The Lord working with them and
confirming the Word with signs following. He did it. He worked
in the people confirming it by His Word. Now look here, 2 Thessalonians
2 verse 13. 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 13. We
are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved
of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you
to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth. Whereunto? He called you by our gospel. Paul was used to preach it, but
it was God who called him. He called you by our gospel to
the planning of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. You see
what I'm saying? What I'm trying to show you here
is He's going to make you know you're in the presence of God.
And when He makes you know you're in the presence of God, you're
going to stop glorying in your flesh. He's going to make it.
Effectually so. He's going to stop blowing in
your flesh. Now here's the second thing to focus on in our text.
He says, but of God are you in Christ Jesus? This is what He's
going to make His people know. All His people are going to be
made to know this. Scripture speaks of three ways
that God's people are in Christ. And all three of these ways are
of God. They're all of God. There's a
representative union with Christ. God chose His people, put us
in Christ before the foundation of the world, so that we've always,
all God's elect, have always been represented by Christ from
before the foundation of the world. Now you see Adam, he was
a type of Christ in representation. All Adam's children were in Adam.
And so when Adam sinned in the garden, all his children sinned
and became unwise, unrighteous, ungodly, and in bondage to the
sin nature. Well, all Christ's people were
in him, represented by him. So everything Christ did, his
people did in him. So they're going to all be made
eternally alive. They're all going to be made
wise unto salvation. They're all going to be made
righteous and holy. They're all going to be brought out of this
bondage. In Adam all died. In Christ shall all be made alive
by representation. And then there's another union
that's called a vital union. We're talking about being in
Christ. If God are you in Christ. This is a vital union. We've
always had this too. All God's elect have had this.
We just didn't know we had this. We've always been vitally in
Christ just like the branches in the vine. Just like the limb
is in the body, we've been in Christ, vitally connected to
Christ. But now it's through this third way that our text
is speaking of here that we're brought to know something about
these other two unions. This third union is a conscious
union. Whenever God comes through the
Gospel, the Holy Spirit takes the blood of Christ and purges
your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. And
now, for the first time ever, you realize, I'm in Christ. I'm in Christ. And you know,
by God's effectual work, it's God who put me there. He put
me there. He put me there in eternity.
He put me there vitally. And He put me there consciously
in my experience of His grace. It's of God, brethren. This union
is not of us. It's not of us. It's not of ourselves
and it's not of any other man. It's not of our will or any other
man's will. It's not of the church. It's not because of our parents,
who they were or what they did. It's not because It's not because
we were smarter and more diligent and studied the Word more and
prayed more. It's not because of any goodness
in us whatsoever. Of God are you in Christ Jesus. No difference in you and any
other sinner. How come you're in Christ and somebody else isn't?
Of God are you in Christ. Of God are you in Christ. John
1.10. I want you to see this, especially the young people.
John 1.10. Look over there with me. John
1.10. He came into this world in the
midst of all men. And the Scripture says this,
He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the
world knew Him not. He came unto His own, the nation
of Israel, and His own received Him not. But as many as received
Him, some received Him. How did they do that? Well, as
many as received Him, to them gave He privilege to become the
sons of God, even to them that believed on His name. How did
they do that? Which were born, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God. They were born of God. Now stay
with the context here in our text. He's teaching us that the
reason God saves through the preaching of the gospel is because
this is the means God has chosen to make His child see, and all
His children see, that we cannot glory in our flesh, but it's
of God that we're in Christ. It's through the preaching of
this gospel. Now this doctrine is clearly
taught in our text, isn't it? You clearly see it in our text. That he's doing this through
the preaching of the gospel. God's doing it and we're not
doing it. We can no more deny this doctrine than we can deny
the doctrine of particular redemption. Because it gives the glory to
God. It gives the glory to God. Now, turn with me back to our
text. Back to our text. And let's look
at this third thing now. Through the preaching of the
gospel, through the operation of God's grace, God makes Christ
all unto His child. He makes Christ all unto His
child. 1 Corinthians 1.20 says, Who
of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification,
and redemption. That's all. That's all. When
Christ has made wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption
to you, then you know Christ is all. Now wisdom. When we talk
about wisdom here. Wisdom. Christ is wisdom to His
child. And wisdom glorifies Christ as
that wisdom that was with God before the foundation of the
world. It's that wisdom whereby God was able to declare the works
finished from the foundation of the world. And then Christ
is that wisdom of the cross. He's the wisdom whereby God declares
His righteousness, where He declares He's just and a justifier. The wisdom whereby God could
be a just God and a Savior to His people. Justice had to be
satisfied so He could show mercy. He can't show mercy at the dispense
of His justice. He won't do that. So Christ came
and laid down his life for his people in the place of his people,
so he declared God just and the justifier. Just and merciful.
He's God in Christ Jesus. But now in a context, wisdom
is glorifying Christ. The word wisdom here glorifies
Christ as being the prophet of his people. Righteousness and
sanctification glorifies Him being the High Priest. Redemption
glorifies Him as being the King, setting us free from bondage.
But here, wisdom glorifies Him as being the Prophet. He's the
Prophet. You see, when God makes Christ
wisdom unto you, you really... Now, you don't hear an audible
voice, but you hear God in your heart, take hold of your heart,
and He says to you, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased. Hear ye Him." And for the first time in your life,
you start hearing Christ speak in this Gospel. You start not
audibly, but in spirit, in truth. You find yourself believing,
and looking, and seeing, and paying attention, and wanting
to know what's He saying. And He's doing this through the
preaching of His Word. He makes you hear Christ speaking. And He makes you to know He is
wisdom. When you have wisdom, you have
the mind of Christ. And you can discern all things
about the gospel. This is the key of knowledge.
We're going to look at the whole second chapter. We're going to
be dealing with this. But you think about Christ as wisdom.
He's the one that sends His preacher. He's the one that gathers His
people. He's the one that gives the preacher the message for
the hour. He's the one that brings all
of the people together to hear the message preached. He's the
one that makes it effectual in the heart of His child. He's
the one preaching it in His child. He's the one who gets the glory.
This is what the Scripture says. It includes all of this when
it says, No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten
Son is in the bosom of the Father. He hath declared Him. He hath
declared Him. He declared Him when He walked
this earth. He declared Him on the cross. He declared Him now
from glory through the preaching of the gospel in the hearts of
His people. He's the one that declared Him. In Christ are hid
all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Listen to Proverbs.
Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the
knowledge of God. For the Lord giveth wisdom. Out
of His mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. Give me your
watch. And then look back at our text now. God makes Christ
righteousness and sanctification. Righteousness and sanctification.
I'm going to include these together because they're two parts of
the same exact thing. Righteousness and sanctification. Righteousness satisfies the law
for justification. That's what righteousness is.
Sanctification satisfies the law concerning the motive of
the holy heart. They both have to do with the
law. There can be no righteousness,
no justification unless the heart is holy in all things before
the law. The law reaches to the heart,
it speaks to the heart. Righteousness and holiness, righteousness
and sanctification are two parts of the same thing. They are so
connected you can't separate them. You can't separate them.
Now Christ is the righteousness of His people. This is what God
makes us see through the preachers of the gospel. When He makes
Christ's wisdom tell you, now you're teachable. And now Christ
starts teaching you what He's done for you. And He teaches
you He's the righteousness of God. And He's the righteousness
of His people. It means He totally, thoroughly
satisfied the law for His people. And justified His people from
all sin. For He hath made Him sin, who knew no sin, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him. And then, of God
is Christ made unto us sanctification. That's holiness. This is of God
now. It's not of us. He's made...
Of God is Christ made unto us sanctification. Holiness. Remember
what flowed out of Christ's wounded side? When that soldier plunged
that spear into his side, you remember what came out? Water
and blood. The blood speaks to justification,
the water speaks to sanctification. Christ is both. Where did they
come from? Where was the fountain they came from? Christ. Christ
is both. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not iniquity, there is righteousness. in whose
spirit there is no guile. There is sanctification, a new
man created there. Listen to this, in that day there
should be a fountain open to the house of David and to the
inhabitants of Jerusalem for two things, for sin, that regards
righteousness, and for uncleanness, that regards sanctification.
And so this is what we're saying, let the water and the blood from
thy wounded side which flows Be of sin the double cure, save
from wrath, justice, and make me pure, holy, sanctified. The Spirit enters through this
gospel, dwells in His people, and when that happens, you're
sanctified, you're holy by Christ's presence in you. Remember when
He entered into that tabernacle in the wilderness? That tabernacle
was holy. by His presence there. And that's
what we're talking about here. That's how new man's created
within us in the image and likeness of God. It's by Christ's entering. That's why it says we're made
partakers of the divine nature. In Hebrews 12 it says we're made
partakers of God's holiness. And that Christ is that holiness. He's that holiness without which
we can't enter into God's presence and see the Lord. He's the holiness.
That's what our text is saying. He's righteousness and He's holiness. Now brethren, let me state this
and I want to be clear on it. This is not inherent righteousness. You know, people hear you preach
on this, and this is what they accuse us of. You're preaching
that a man has an inherent righteousness. The definition, the true definition
of inherent righteousness means it's of you. It's a righteousness
and a holiness that is of you. No, what this is, is a righteousness
and a holiness God puts in His child when Christ enters into
His child, and Christ is the righteousness and the holiness.
of that new man. That's how one we are with Him.
We can't be separated because Christ is our righteousness and
holiness of our new man. Can Christ get more righteous?
No. Can He get more holy? No. So
away with this business of getting more and more and more holy.
Christ is my righteousness and my holiness. I'm fit to enter
into the kingdom of God with a saint right now and you are
too if you got Christ in you. And you know the truth of the
matter. Men want to argue that. Men want to say, well, no, you
speak preaching inherent righteousness. Well, I'm preaching imparted
righteousness. Scripture don't really call it
that, but that's what I'm calling it. But here's the point of the
matter. You can't have life. Are you
a liar? Does a man have to be made spiritually
alive before he can believe God? You can't have spiritual life
unless that life is righteousness and holiness. There is no such
thing as life that's not righteousness and holiness. When Adam sinned
in the garden, he died immediately because he became unrighteous
and ungodly. That's why he died. And that's
what the Scripture tells us. Listen to this. Spiritual life
necessitates, it's necessary, that there be righteousness and
holiness created within us. We don't have spiritual life.
Listen to the Scripture. If Christ be in you, Christ our
righteousness and our holiness. If Christ be in you, the body
is dead because of sin. All you are in your flesh is
sin. We're not talking about anything in you or of you, in
your flesh. But if Christ be in you, it says
the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because
of righteousness. And that includes His sanctification.
Christ our righteousness. And then here's something else
I want to state on this. Sometimes, you know, preachers, we get so
overzealous to make sure you understand that we're not saying
there's any good in us. There's not anything righteous
or holy in us. Nothing in our flesh is good.
But sometimes we go to the point that we almost deny what God
does in His child. Now everything that's evil and
wicked and sinful comes from our flesh. It's all of us. But
when God enters in and sanctifies His child, there's something
called the fruits of the Spirit. And they're going to be there.
Listen to this. Listen to this. Galatians 5.22,
the fruit of the Spirit's love joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. And against such there is no
law. That's another reason why the
believer is not under the law, we're under grace. Because everything
that comes from our new man comes from the Spirit of God. You can't
put the Spirit of God under a law, can you? There's nothing that's
going to come from Him that's illegal. It's all legal. It's all lawful. So we're not
under the law. Christ is in our hearts ruling
and leading us now so that we're not following just a dead letter
law and the dictates of our flesh. We're actually following Christ.
Now again, I tell you, make sure you stay with the context. God
does all this through the preaching of the Gospel. Through the preaching
of the Gospel. Seeing what God does through
the preaching of His Gospel. You know what we'd be wise to
do? Find a place where that gospel is preached in truth and sit
there. Camp out there. If only God can do this, and
it says it's all of God, and He said He's only going to do
it through the preaching of the gospel, we ought to get where
we can hear the gospel preached in truth then. Alright, here's
another thing. The last point of this, He makes
Christ's redemption to us. Redemption is a big word. Christ
is our redemption. It means everything Christ purchased
for His people and everything He frees us from is redemption. For instance, Christ redeemed
His people from guilt. Isn't that wonderful? We don't
have any guilt before God. There's nothing a child of God,
a true believer, called one whom God has made Christ's redemption
unto. There's nothing you can do to
become guilty before God. Only if Christ could become guilty,
and that can't be, we can't become guilty before God. He's freed
us from hell. We have no possibility we'll
ever go to hell. No child for whom Christ died
will ever go to hell. We've been freed from sin. Freed
from sin. God says, as a thick cloud I've
blotted out your transgressions. God sees no sin in His people,
because He sees no sin in His Son. No sin. Past, present, or
future. Nothing we can do for Him to
see sin in us. If we sin in our flesh, yes,
He's going to correct His child because He's going to keep you
partakers of Christ your holiness. He's going to keep you looking
to Christ your righteousness only and not to you. And when
you sin, first thing we do is we try to fix it. And God won't
have that. That's worse than sin. That's
a worse sin than the original sin. So He brings us back to
Christ. But He doesn't see sin in us
anymore. It's all in love, it's not in wrath. And then He's freed
us from the power of Satan. Satan can't have dominion over
his child anymore. Christ, you can't have two masters. Satan can't be your master and
Christ be your master. Christ takes up the masterhood
in the heart of His child. And then He's freed us from the
grave. None of us here know when we're
going to face the grave. It could be a young person, it
could be an older person. One thing is certain, it's uncertain.
Only God knows. But I'll tell you this, when
we die, this old flesh is going to be put off, these bodies are
going to go back to the grave, but our spirits are going to
go with the Lord immediately when we die. And there's coming
what's called a day of redemption. It's called that day, the day
of redemption. And what's going to happen that
day is those that are with God in spirit right now, they're
not with Him in body right now. But the dead in Christ are going
to raise first their bodies, a new glorified immortal body
to be with their body, soul, and spirit, and then we're going
to arise with them. A new body, soul, and spirit.
We're going to be totally redeemed from sin and from all its effects
and be with Christ forever. Now that's what God makes Christ
to us through the preaching of this gospel. No flesh is going
to glory in His presence. He's going to make that known
in the heart of His child. He's going to make you know it's
of God that you've been converted into Christ. It's not of your
will, your blood, your flesh, or nothing. He's going to make
Christ your wisdom, your righteousness, your sanctification, and your
redemption. And He's doing all of this, brethren, to show you.
If all of this is of God and not of you, if every bit of this
is of Christ and not of you, that means we don't have any
room to glory about anything. We cannot pat ourselves on the
back and say, we did one blooming thing in this thing of salvation,
except sin. That's all we did. That's all
we've ever done. So here's the final and full
reason why God brings you to this point right here, verse
31. And this He effectually brings
His child to do. That according as it is written,
He that glories. He that wants to clap and applaud
and praise somebody, let him glory in the Lord. Let him glory
in the Lord. And I'll tell you this, because
God cannot fail, Because God fulfills every word in this book
that He says He's going to do. Every child that God has truly
saved, you'll never hear them glorying in themselves. They're
going to glory in God only. Because God works this. And He
does it through the gospel. Aren't you glad? Now we've seen
some mighty good reasons. And God saves through the preaching
of the Gospel. It's all for God's glory, so that we gain glory. That's what the main reason.
All for God's glory, so that we gain glory. Father, we thank
You for Your Word. We thank You for choosing this
means of saving Your people. We thank You, Lord, that You
didn't leave anything in our hands. You never have, You never
will. Lord, we live in a world now
where the main confusion with young people and all and is vain
religion. Vain religion and this world's
way and this world's gospel. Lord, make your people to see,
though we be small, though we may be foolish and unwise and
not powerful and not from nobility and all these different things
that men admire, make your people to understand, Lord, When you
set your name in a place, Christ is the wall of fire round about,
and He's the glory in the midst of His people, and He's walking
in the candlesticks, amongst the candlesticks, and it's His
presence that's going to make us to see we can't glory. But
it's of God, all of God, and that Christ is all. and He's
going to bring us to glory in you. Lord, please, we ask you
to do that in the hearts of your people now, so that you might
get to glory and to honor. Lord, forgive us of our sins.
Forgive us for looking to other means and methods and even entertaining
the idea that anything else is worthy to look to. Make us just
sit under your gospel and listen. You'll answer all our questions
and teach us the truth of Christ. Thank you, Father. In Christ's
name we pray. Amen.