Let's turn to Galatians chapter
1. Galatians chapter 1. Galatians chapter 1 verse 1 begins,
Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus
Christ, and God the Father who raised him from the dead. Paul's
teachers were trying to turn the Galatian believers from the
gospel of free grace in Christ back to the old covenant law.
They were teaching that justification and sanctification was by mixture
of faith in Christ as well as works of the law. And Paul wrote here to convince
the Galatians of the error. He wrote to turn them back to
Christ alone, to remind them that in Jesus Christ neither
circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but faith
which works by love, not by law. And the false teachers also were
doing what false teachers do. They were saying because Paul
preached Christ and only Christ, they were saying, well, he's
a false preacher. He's not even an apostle, they
said. And so Paul begins this letter affirming that their slander
was false. He says, I am an apostle, not
of men, neither by man. An apostle was one called directly
by the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, I'm called by Jesus
Christ, and God the Father who raised Him from the dead. And
then he says, verse 2, And all the brethren which are with me
unto the churches of Galatia. This letter was not only from
Paul, it was from all the believers with him. And it was written
to believers at the churches at Galatia. Now let's learn from
Paul. Paul knew that these brethren
were being turned from Christ and so Paul wastes no time. He
wastes no time. He gets right to Christ. Look
here. He says, verse 3, Grace be to
you and peace. Grace and peace from God the
Father. and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
If you have grace and peace, that's who it's coming from.
God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now watch this.
Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from
this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father,
to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Now, verses 4 and
5 tell us what the subject of our message is today. It tells
us the message of our gospel and it tells us the one message
of this entire book, the Bible. To whom be the glory. To whom
be glory. We're told here what Christ did.
Verse 4 says, He gave Himself for our sins. Christ gave Himself
for our sins. Then we're told why Christ did
it. Verse 4 says that He might deliver
us from this present evil world. And then we're told how Christ
did this. According to the will of God
and our Father. And then we're told what belongs
to our triune God in Christ because He accomplished this. Verse 5. To whom be glory forever and
ever. Amen. to whom be glory. That's our subject. First of
all, we're told what Christ did here. Verse 4 says, who gave
himself for our sins. Now, this is written to believers.
This is written to folks called by God's grace to whom Paul could
say with certainty that Christ gave himself for our sins. So
that's how he worded it. He gave himself for our sins.
Now believer, I want you to... I want you to try to get these
words down in your heart. I want you to really think about
this. Christ Jesus gave himself for
our sins. I'm always inspired by these
stories, you know, you see where somebody had a child and their
child was you know, had a disease or something from birth to where
they couldn't even communicate with the parent. But yet the
parent gave their life to clothe and feed and keep and protect
that child all their days. I'm always inspired by something
like that. We'll hear a story like that about how somebody
gave themselves. You hear stories, I read all
kinds of illustrations while I was preparing this message.
One was about how there was a family that was staying in a home and
the children were staying in a house next door and the father
was staying in a house right beside it. The windows were just
real close to one another and the house the children were in
caught on fire. There was no way to get downstairs
and get out of that house. And so the father breaks the
window out of the house he's in and he leaned out and stretched
himself out across and he hung his feet on one side of the window
and he stretched himself out to the other side of the window
and had his children crawl across, one at a time, across his body
into that house that was not on fire so they could be delivered.
And he fell after it was all over with and died. We hear stories
like that and you think, that's amazing, it moves you, it stirs
you that a man would give himself to save somebody else. But we
hear Christ, God came down. God came down. Christ Jesus came
down and gave himself for our sins. And to a cold, dead, stony
heart, it doesn't even move it. It doesn't even move that heart.
Just look at this. Our Lord Jesus Christ gave. He
gave. He gave willingly. He gave voluntarily. He didn't have to be persuaded
or guilted or made to do something like we often are. He did it
willingly. He gave willingly, voluntarily.
And He gave freely. He didn't come... You know, when
you give, it's free. If you expect something in return,
that's not free. And He didn't come expecting
anything from those for whom He died. He came giving Himself
freely. And He gave Himself faithfully.
He gave Himself to His Father. He gave Himself to His people.
He did it in perfect faithfulness. No consideration of Himself,
consideration of His Father, consideration of His people.
Faithfully. And He gave Himself fully. Fully. This was not a half-hearted thing.
He gave Himself fully. Our Lord Jesus Christ gave Himself. He didn't merely give things
that belonged to Him. Most of our giving is surplus
giving. It ought not to be. But that's
what most of our giving is. It's surplus giving. It's giving
to where if it really comes down to it, we're not hindered too
bad because we got extra. Christ gave Himself. Christ gave
Himself. Not things that belong to Him.
He didn't give His holy angels. He didn't send them down. He
didn't give the cattle on a thousand hills and all the things that
belongs to Him. He didn't give gold. He didn't
give silver. He gave His own self. He gave
Himself. He gave His life. The Lord Jesus
gave His life. He gave His flesh, His body. He gave His blood. He gave His
nature. He gave His spirit. He gave His
soul. He gave His whole self. And for what? Verse 4 says, "...who gave himself
for our sins." For our sins. I'll tell you something, there's
one thing that you and me can claim as our very own. Just one
thing. Our sins. That's it. Everything else you and I have
was given to us. Given to us by Him. Everything
else we have was given to us. The one thing you and I could
claim completely, totally of ourselves is our sin. Our sin. And what a worthless, cursing,
deadly possession. Sins. And yet Christ gave Himself for
our sins. Not for any sin of His own. He
knew no sin. He had no sin. He had no reason
to come. Not for the sins of angels. There was a whole host of angels
that sinned against God and He cast them out. Not for the sins of the apostles
only. Not for the sins of the Jews
only. Not for the sins of the early church only. Not for the
sins of Old Testament saints only. Not for the sins of all mankind. Boy, the record just scratched
in. Everybody was dancing with me until I just said that. Not
for all mankind. For our sins. The sins of God's
elect chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, according
to Ephesians 1, verses 3 and 4. The sins of His people. He gave Himself when He agreed
with the Father in eternity to lay down His life for the sins
of His people, His church, those He everlastingly loved. That's
when He gave Himself. He gave Himself when He willingly
came from heaven's glory to where we are to work out a salvation
for His people. He gave Himself for that. How
many times you know you get up and you think, I just don't want
to go to work today. I just don't want to go today.
You think he wanted to come? This was something he was looking
forward to as far as to go into the teeth of justice for his
people? To be made the cursed thing for
his people? You think he just jumped up saying, boy, I want
to do this. He did it. He did. He went. He
went willingly. He went, set his face like a
flint. He went. He gave Himself to bear
our sins in His own body on the tree. When the hour was come,
He gave Himself to bear our sins in His own body on the tree.
I tried to illustrate this to the young people the other day
and I took a book like this. And this is white, so you have
to bear with me, but our sins are black. Here's our sin, here's
the sins. Let's say there's just one person
he's going to die for. This is so of every elect child
he died for. Here we are, nothing on us but
sin. And he came and God took our
sin off us and put our sin on him and made him bear our sin. He made Him bear our sins. He
made Him bear all our sins. The Lord hath laid on Him the
iniquities of us all, of all of His people, and He bore all
of the sins of all of His people. He bear the sins of many who
His own self bear our sins in His own body on the tree. All
our sins, original, personal sins, Sins of thought, word,
and deed. Sins past, present, and future. All our sins. And He gave Himself
to have our sins imputed to Him. When God put our sins on Him,
God accounted Him to be sin in place of His people. He charged
Him with the sins that He put on Him. I know folks confound
that. They confound. They say, well,
that's how he was made sin, by God imputing the sin to him.
God's a just accountant. He doesn't account something
that's not there. And men will say this. Men will
say, well, then if you say that, you've got to say that Christ's
nature became impure and tainted. No, I don't have to say that
and I won't say that. Faith believes what God's Word
says. Faith believes what God says
in His Word. And men will say, well, logically
that couldn't be possible that He could be made sin only by
imputation. He couldn't really be made sin.
He couldn't really bear our sins in His body. Brethren, faith
is not logic. I don't know by faith. I don't
know logically. I don't know how God could become
a man I don't know how he could come into the womb of a virgin
and be born of a virgin. Logically, that don't make sense
to me. It doesn't make sense to me that a dead man could come
out of a grave and go back to glory. But those who believe
need no explanation. Those who do not believe, no
explanation will do. We believe God. The only thing
that's impossible to faith is that anything's impossible to
our God. That's the only thing impossible
to faith. Faith believes God. Satan wants you to always take
it further than the Scripture says or stop short of what the
Scripture says. Faith says, I believe what God
says. How about that? How about that? He gave Himself to be wounded
for our sins, bruised for our sins, chastised for our sins
under the fierce wrath of the God He loved. Without shedding of blood, there's
no remission of sins. And He gave Himself to pour out
His soul unto death for our sins. And we sat and we heard that
message. And we heard that message. And
we heard that message. And our daddy and our mother
made us come to church. And so we went. Because we were
too lazy to go out and work on our own and not have to live
under their roof. And we stayed under their roof. And we had
to do what they did because they said, as long as you're under
my roof, you're going to go hear the gospel. And for us it rebelled, and every
one of us did. We were like blind Bartimedas
sitting on the roadside, sitting right in the middle of a church,
but we was out of the way, we was on the side of the way. It
wasn't until Christ came in that message, in the way, and made
us to see what we are by giving Himself in regeneration, by giving
Himself into our hearts, in the Spirit, by the Holy Spirit. And He began to make us cry out
unto Him because we saw our blindness. He gave Himself to keep us. We saw it then that He gave Himself
to keep us that whole time we were rebelling against Him. Every
good thing I ever received while I was trying to kill God in my
mind, in my thoughts, in my words and in my deeds, God gave it
to me. Everything. Everything. I didn't deserve it. I wasn't
worth it. And all I really deserved was
hell. And He gave me all that. He gave Himself that whole time,
keeping me. And He gives Himself to continually
intercede for us as our advocate with the Father and to keep us
because He's God's high priest. He gives Himself. You see, what
I'm trying to show you is Christ has continually gave himself
for his people, for our sins. You see, Christ is the only faithful,
holy believer. Try to put it that way. You had
one man, Adam, representing everybody that's going to come from him.
He sinned against God, he failed, he was cast out, and everybody
with him. And then you got another man
who comes, the only man born holy, the only man come from
his mother's womb desiring to do the will of his father and
doing the will of his father. And that man represented all
his people. That man was faithful to God.
That man depended upon the Word of God. That man did the will
of God. That man went about doing everything that pleased the Father.
And everything that man did, He did for His people and His
people did in Him. And it's through faith that God
makes us lay hold of that. Now let's look here secondly.
We're told why He did this. Why did He do this? Look at verse
4. That He might deliver us from this present evil world. Now,
first notice who does the delivering. It says that He might deliver.
That He might deliver. He delivered His people when
He entered into covenant with the Father in eternity. He delivered
us the whole time we were in our rebellion. He delivered us
on Calvary's cross. He delivered us when He made
us hear the gospel and regenerated us. He delivered us every hour
of our life since it began. He's delivered us. And He's going
to come back again and He's going to deliver His people. Now, He
delivers us. He's the only one that does the
delivering. He delivers us from our sins
into heaven's glory perfectly conformed to His image. He does
the delivering. The only part you and I, believer,
have to do in this process of being delivered is that we rest
in Him to do the delivering. That's it. We just trust Him
to do the delivery, to do everything required to deliver us. That's
all we do. And that's doing nothing. I've never taken a cruise. One
day, Lord willing, maybe I'll get to go on a cruise. But if
I ever went on a cruise, I'll tell you this is what I'd do.
I'd get on board that ship with all the other fellas in the ship
and we'd all be in fellowship together. You know what we'd
do on that ship? We'd just sit down. and trust that that captain's
going to take us from New Jersey all the way down through the
Caribbean and all the way around or wherever it is we're going,
he's going to get us to where we're going. I'm not going to
be up in his wheelhouse, butting in on his business and trying
to tell him what I think he ought to be doing. I'm going to be
sitting back there in the sunshine with my toes up enjoying the
ride. That's what it is to be delivered.
That's what it is to be delivered. What does Christ deliver us from?
Verse 4 says, From this present world, this present evil world. This present world is evil. Now
it doesn't mean the earth. God did say to Adam, Cursed is
the ground for your sake, and sorrow you'll eat of it all the
days of your life, thorns and thistles it'll bring forth to
thee. The ground is cursed for our sake. But it means from fallen
mankind. That's what it means. from the
common condemnation of this present evil world. All women and all
men from the youngest to the oldest are all fallen in Adam
under the curse and condemnation of the law. Every one of us.
When God created man, he created him upright, he created him holy,
because that's the only way God creates anything. He don't make
something sinful. God created man in his own image.
in the image of God created in him. And God saw everything that
he made, and behold, it was very good. But with one transgression,
sin entered in. Now you listen carefully to me.
I want you to think about this. When that sin entered in, you
know, you could be going along in your life and everything's
going fine, you feel good, you got energy, you're excited, everything's
going good. And a germ entered you. A flu
virus. And it just all of a sudden hits
you, I got the flu one time, I was going duck hunting, about
3.30 in the morning, and I started getting the flu, coming down
with the flu on the way to the duck blind. And by the time I
got to the duck blind, I was at about 103, 104 fever, and
I couldn't stand it. And you know I got to be sick
to pick decoys up and leave the duck blind. I picked up and left
the duck blind. I was so sick I got to the truck,
I couldn't back the trailer up to put the boat on the trailer.
I was just all out of swag. Well, we were without sin. We
had no sin. And with one sin, when that virus
of sin entered into our bodies, our whole nature changed. All our desires changed. Our
sight became dark. Our minds became ignorant. Our
hearts became full of hate. Before, we were walking with
God in the garden and loving to be in fellowship with God.
And the next minute, when sin entered in, we were trying to
hide from God. You know what it is, sinner,
that makes you not want to come to this place? You know what
it is that makes you not want to hear this gospel? You know
what it is that makes you not want to even believe anything
remotely having to do with God? You know what it is that makes
you say, I would rather just say that this all just happened
than to believe God? You know what it is that makes
you and your unbelieving mother or father or sister or brother,
you know what it is that makes them cringe when you start talking
about the gospel? You know what it is that makes
you say, talk about something else, that just brings me down,
that's like a bad subject. Let's talk about something that's
good and profitable. Let's talk about football or
something. What is it that does that? You yourself are a walking
proof that man fell in Adam. And I am too. That's in us, brethren. That's what did that. We died. We died spiritually and we began
dying physically. Scientists like to say that the
world's a billion years old and they use fossils to make that
determination. I don't know how old the world
is, but I know it's not older than the garden because there
was no death before the garden to even make fossils. Death started
in the garden. We died in the garden. Now just
look around at this present time. What do you see presently around
us? It's a present evil world. That's exactly what it is. Death,
sin, evil of all kinds, the product of our own rebellion against
God. We can't calculate the evil that we've caused since time
existed. We live in a city of destruction. I can guarantee you this. All
we do is harm ourselves. That's all we do. That's all
you and I can do. If it tastes good, if it feels
good, it's bad for you. That's just plain. That's simple.
If it tastes good and feels good, it's doing you something wrong
somehow. If it makes you smell good and look good, something
died to make it or something being polluted to make it. Every
drug that heals one part hurts another part. If we touch it, we pollute it.
Just that simple. There's not a household on earth,
there's not a heart among us that hadn't been touched by this
sin. This morning, somebody got up on this earth, they didn't
have a place, they didn't have a roof over their head, they didn't
have food to eat. If somebody woke up this morning, they didn't
know how they was gonna pay their bills. Right now, out there on the interstate,
presently, at this moment, it's just one car after another going
by. And if you looked at it from an aerial view over the whole
world, you just see it pulsing through all the highways in this
world of people just acting, going, going, going, just like
our blood pulsing through our veins. And just as poisonous
and evil. Somebody died right now without
hope. before God. They stand before
God right now without hope. Somebody right now started planning
a funeral and grieving because they know they're going to have
to meet God and they don't have hope. This world's evil, brethren. Everybody that's happy and rejoicing
and joyful outside of Christ are really just full of lamenting
and woe because it's all vanity outside of Christ. Wherever we
are in this world right now, we're dwelling in a present evil
world. You know what God told Jeremiah,
His beloved Jeremiah? You know what He told him? He
said, Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit. He said,
Through deceit they refuse to know Me, saith the Lord. Through
deceit they refuse to know Me. What's that mean? You ever have
somebody... You've probably done this to yourself. Get up and
say, well, I was going to go with you this morning, but something's
come down on me. I can't go. I can't do it. And
not anything at all be wrong with you. Just don't... I can't
go. Through deceit they refused to know me, the Lord said. There's
no one to blame but us, brethren. The Scripture says, by one man. Not by God, by one man. Sin entered
the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men
for that are in whom we all died. We all died. All of the sorrow
and all the misery, it's not God's fault. Stop blaming God. It's not God's fault. It's our
fault. It's our fault. The cause is
sin. Everything with the evil we see,
that's the effect. The cause is in your breast and
mine. That's the cause. Next time you
listen to the news report and you hear all that evil reported
in there, don't sit there and point the finger and go, well,
shame on them. Just know that every bit of that
evil all together, compounded together, is in your nature and
in my nature. Every bit of it. And we'll go
on blaming God and go on saying, how could a good God let evil
exist like this? Until the day that God makes
you see, I'm the evil. I'm there. You want Him to stop
the evil? He'd start by knocking you off the face of this planet.
That'd start. That'd be a good place to start. Oh, well, I don't
want the evil to stop then. That's what a man will say. I
didn't mean to stop it that way. What if man was taken off of
this planet? What if man was completely taken
off this planet? Would there be any evil then?
I bet there wouldn't be a gun killing anybody. The evil is us, brethren. It
evils us. And until we're made to know
our sin, until we're made to know God hates sin, until God
makes us to know He abhors, He's angry with the wicked every day,
and I'm the wicked. Until He makes us see that, we'll
keep blaming God when it's our fault. But when He makes us see
it, when He makes us see that we're not worth anything, that
we're not being valued by God for anything we've ever thought,
said, done, or be, but that we deserve hell. When He makes you
to see that and then tells you He's going to save you anyway,
that's when you'll start praising God instead of blaming God. That's
when you'll start believing God instead of calling God a liar.
I'm telling you the truth now. This is the condemnation and
Christ was sent to deliver us from this present evil world.
Look at John chapter 3. John chapter 3. Here's what the Scripture says.
John chapter 3. And look at verse 19. This is
the condemnation right here. That light has come into the
world. There was no light until Christ came. That's what He said.
I'm the light of the world. As long as I'm in the world,
I'm the light of the world. Light came into this world. A true
light. No sin, no evil, no darkness,
no wickedness. Light came into this world. This is a condemnation. Light
is coming to the world. Men loved darkness rather than
light because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth
evil hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his
deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth comes
to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they
are wrought in God. Well, if everybody hates the
light, won't come to the light, how is a man going to be made
to come to the light? Look at Isaiah 49. Look at Isaiah 49
verse 9. God said, I'm going to give Christ for a covenant
of the people. And here's what He's going to
do. Isaiah 49 and verse 9. It says, that thou mayest say
to the prisoners, go forth, and to them that are in darkness,
show yourselves. God said, I'm going to give you.
My son, that you have the glory of doing this, that you have
the glory of speaking, and when you speak effectually into their
hearts, the chains are going to fall off, that evil chains
of their nature, and they're going to be delivered, and they're
going to step from darkness into His light and say, Lord, all
my works are wrought in You. They're wrought by You. Everything
I'm trusting is in You completely. He brings us to believe on Him
and He delivers us from the condemnation. From condemnation. He by Himself
purged our sin. He by Himself finished the transgression. He by Himself made an end of
sin. He by Himself made reconciliation for iniquity. He by Himself brought
in everlasting righteousness. He by Himself abolished death. He by Himself abolished in His
flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in
ordinances which were against us, and took them out of the
way, nailing them to His cross, and made us to see that He's
reconciled us to God in Him. So work in peace for His people.
Our Lord Jesus gave Himself that He might be the one that does
the delivering. When He's brought us into His light, He makes us
to see that. And then He makes us to know
He's delivered us from the condemnation that we were under. Romans 8,
verse 1 says, There is therefore now no condemnation to them that
are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after
the Spirit. Because the law of the Spirit
of life in Christ has made me free from the law of sin and
death. I've been delivered. He delivered me. And He keeps
delivering us. He keeps on every day delivering
us. He which has begun a good work in you will perform it to
the day of Jesus Christ. We're kept by the power of God
through faith under salvation, ready to be revealed in the last
time. He keeps us. He sanctifies us in our hearts
continually from the defilements of this world. Through this gospel,
through His Spirit, He keeps us from being like this world
and from the evil customs of this world and from the man-exalting
religion of this world and from the vain, man-exalting philosophy
of this world. He keeps us separated by His
grace. He keeps us separated from the
fear of this world. You know what we call it? We
call it political correctness. I'm just doing this to be politically
correct. We call it not rocking the boat, going with the flow.
We call it etiquette. That's what we call it. You know
what God calls it? Fearing the world. Fearing the
world. That's what He calls it. Christ
speaks into the heart and He says, Be not conformed to this
world, be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that you
may prove what's that good and acceptable and perfect will of
God. And He makes sin hateful to us and He makes the world
hateful to us. He makes us to say, if sin put my Savior on
that cross and this world put my Savior on this cross, I can't
go on buddying up to sin in this world. I hate the sin in this
world. He does that. He delivers us
from there and keeps us separate. Because He came to separate a
people unto Himself, brethren. According to the measure of the
ability that God gives us, as we walk through this earth, we're
to copy the example of our Father. This is totally opposite to this
world. God our Father makes His Son and His reign to fall on
the just and the unjust, the evil and the good. This world
does good to good and evil to evil. This world renders sword
for sword. but God our Father makes His
reign and His things needed fall on evil men just as well as He
does good men. He says, and Christ told us, now you go forth and
be like Christ, be like the Father. We're to consider those around
us. What influence can we have for their good? Especially for
the gospel. Invite them to come hear the
gospel. Give them a CD or something. It's all they'll hope for. And
don't be like folks who, you know, I can't stand it when these
folks are always, always trying to Look for some way to just
bombard you with their religious jargon and all their religious
junk. Wait for the Lord to open up the door. Wait for Him to
open the door. By all means, do something. Don't try to force somebody,
force your view on somebody. That's not going to do anything.
Wait for God to open the door. But look for that door. Be looking
for that door. And then last thing, look at
this. He delivers His people from this present evil world
contrasted with that future world wherein dwells righteousness.
One of these days, brethren, He's going to deliver us out
completely of this present evil world into that world where everything
there is the product of His doing. And therefore, everything there
is going to be righteousness. Everybody. Everybody. All right,
let me hurry here. They won't be any lost either.
They'll all be saved, everyone of them. Here's the third thing.
We're told here how Christ did this work. Look at verse 4, Galatians
3, 4. He did it according to the will
of the Father. This is to comfort, brethren.
We've never done anything that's pleasing to the Father. Not in
our flesh. But everything Christ did from
the eternity until when He folds this whole thing up like a vesture
after He's called all His people out. Everything He's ever done
has been pleasing to the Father. It's all been the will of the
Father. You know, divine election and
divine predestination, those aren't ugly words. Those are
good words. God doesn't save on accident.
He doesn't try one plan and it messed up so he has to go to
another plan. God chose, He'd say. God predestinated them to
be conformed to the image of His Son. God predestinated the
time and place where He crossed their path with His Gospel. God
our Father does everything according to the counsel of His own will.
And nobody can thwart that will. Nobody can turn Him aside or
make Him go this way or that way. He's so wise in working
His will that even all the evil that's taking place is accomplishing
His will. That's right. When He came down here, He came
down here to save a people. He said, I came to do Thy will,
O God. Thy law is in my heart. He said,
I came to do Thy will. And while Christ walked this
earth, He spoke and He did only the will of God His Father. He
said, I can of my own self do nothing. Why? Isn't He God? Yeah, it's God. He could do whatever
He wanted to. But He humbled Himself and took
the place of a servant. And as a servant, He's representing
what we should have been and what we ought to be. He said this, As I hear what
my Father speaks, that's how I judge. In other words, how
do you discern? How do you discern what's good
and what's evil? You hear your Father speak. He said, as I hear
Him speak, I discern. And my judgment is just, because
I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which
has sent me. Never at any point in his life
did he ever seek his own will. I can't say that in an hour,
about an hour of my life. He never sought His will. He
sought the will of the Father. Now His will and the Father's
will were one, but He always sought the will of the Father.
He went to the cross because He gave... Our text says why.
He gave Himself for our sins that He might deliver us from
this present evil world because it was the will of God His Father.
That's why. By the which will we're sanctified
through the offering of the body of Christ once for all. And you
know this, I found this too in Romans 8. even now at God's right
hand. Christ's intercession on behalf
of those that He has redeemed, it's according to the will of
God. Romans 8.27 says, He that searcheth the hearts knoweth
what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession
for the saints according to the will of God. It's God's will
that He make intercession, and the intercession that He makes
on behalf of His saints is all according to the will of God.
If you hear men say, I want to pray to the Father, I want to
do His will. Well, if you want to pray the
will of the Father, pray in Christ. Because Christ is going to intercede
according to the will of the Father. That's the only way He
does it. And He says this, and this is
what He said, now seeing He did the will of the Father, He tells
you now, you want to know the will of the Father? Here it is.
All that see Christ and all that believe on Christ, all that cast
their care into Christ's hand and trust Christ to deliver them,
to do all the work, He says, they may have eternal life. You may have it. You have permission
to have eternal life. Believe on His Son. And you may
believe on His Son. And this is the will of God,
our sanctification from this world. You know, don't ever be
hateful to anybody in this world. Don't be hateful to them. But
you know, don't ever go and don't go looking for a fight, you know.
But let it be an indication of how much we are conformed to
this world or how we're separate from this world by how the world
treats us. If those who don't believe on
Christ in this Bible, if they receive me and they love me and
they're kind to me, it's probably because I'm conformed to them.
It's probably because I haven't clearly made it clear the gospel
that I preach, the gospel that I believe. Because when you make
it clear the gospel you believe, sometimes folks will still be
friendly with you, but a lot of times folks just don't, if
they are friendly with you, they still don't treat you the same.
Before it was up like this. Now it's like this. They might
be friendly to you, but it's at arm's length. And that's a
litmus test, brethren. Persecution in the early church
was not because the people were more evil then. Persecution in
the early church was because the saints were more bold. They
were more bold to declare the truth of God. Paul said, I pray
that God will open my mouth that I might speak boldly as I ought
to speak. And he says here, if I pleased
men, I wouldn't be the servant of Christ. Alright, let me end
here. We're told what belongs to our
triune God and to Christ for accomplishing accomplishing this
work. Verse 5 says, To whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Now, if you just look at this
text. This text is our gospel. This is just a summary of the
whole Bible right here. Now look at this text. Christ
did the giving. Christ did the giving. Christ
gave Himself for the sins of His people. Christ did the delivering. In every aspect of the Word,
Christ did all the delivering. Christ did it according to the
will of God the Father. Everything He has accomplished
was the will of God the Father. So then, the only thing we did
was sin and passively be delivered. So then, who gets the glory?
Who gets the glory? Our triune God in Christ gets
the glory. To whom be the glory. And this is our privilege, brethren. This is the light of everybody
that's been called by His grace and delivered by His grace. The
glory of Christ and our gratitude to Him are the theme of our lives
right now and they shall be the never ending song of every saint
in glory. We want God to have all the glory. We do. And those who don't want
Him to have all the glory are one day going to bow to Him and
give Him all the glory. That's right. This will be the
song, Revelation 5, verse 13. This will be the song in that
day. And every creature which is in
heaven and on earth and under the earth and such as are in
the sea, Revelation 5, verse 13, Every creature which is in
heaven and on earth and under the earth and such as are in
the sea and all that are in them, heard I say, blessing and honor
and glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne
and unto the Lamb forever.