Thank you, Robert. Thank you,
Eric and Sarah. If y'all will turn to Matthew
11. Matthew chapter 11. Let's read verses 28, 29, and
30. Matthew chapter 11. This is the
Lord Jesus Christ speaking. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest
unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light. Now brethren, the Lord Jesus
Christ shall save every child that the Father gave to Him before
this world was ever made. He came to where we are and He
fulfilled all righteousness for His people. He went to the cross
and had all the sin of His people laid on Him and satisfied divine
justice for His people. There He is. He purged us completely
of all our sins before He ever sat down at the right hand of
the Father. He will not lose one. He shall save all His people
and not one shall be lost. Not one. Christ said, all that
the Father giveth unto Me shall come unto me. That's what he
said. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. And then a little bit later he
said no man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me
drawing. And I will raise him up at the
last day. It is written in the prophets.
and they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that
hath heard, it means all of them shall, and hath learned of the
Father cometh unto me. You see where they all come to?
They all come to Him. Now none are going to be able
to resist His grace. None of them will. Because whenever
God comes in power and He gives a view, a sight of Christ Jesus
the Lord, and makes His people to see Him, that's the willingness. That's what makes them willing
in the day of His power. Him. To see Him. And they will
see Him. And when they see Him, they'll
come to Him. They'll come to Him. and He will not lose one. Now do you hear what Christ is
saying this morning? Do you hear what He says in our
text? Look at verse 28. He says, Come unto Me. Come unto Me. All you that labor, are you laboring? Are you one that is laboring?
Are you laboring to try to find peace in your conscience? Are
you laboring to try to find relief from the condemnation of the
law? Are you laboring to try to find some kind of relief from
being under the fear of God? Are you laboring to try to find
acceptance with God? Now, some may be saying, well,
I'm not laboring for those things. I'm laboring for those things
that Brother Scott was talking about. I'm laboring for happiness
in my marriage. And I'm laboring for a promotion
at my job. And I'm laboring for on and on
and on and on. Listen to this. Your Father knoweth you have
need of these things. That's not what is important.
That's not what's important. If that's what's on your mind,
your priorities are messed up bad. He said, Seek ye first the
kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you. He says here, Come unto me all
ye that are heavy laden. Are you laden down? Are you heavy
laden? Do your sins weigh heavy upon
you? Whether you know it or not, Everyone sitting here right now
that's outside of Christ, everyone of you who have not come to Christ,
the wrath of God abides on you. Listen to this. He that believeth
on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned
already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten
Son of God. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not The Son, he
that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of
God abideth on him. Has some preacher loaded you
down? Has some preacher loaded you down with a list of do's
and don'ts? Christ says, come unto Me. That's what He said. And I'll
give you rest. He says, take my yoke upon you
and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. He says,
and you shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy
and my burden is light. Christ is our Sabbath rest. That's what He is for His people.
For those that come to Him, for those that believe on Him, He
is our Sabbath rest. Everything's been provided. He's
provided everything in the six days of His grace. And when you
find Him, you're in the seventh day of rest. And you can rest
in Him. You can rest in Him. And His
yoke's easy and it's light. It's easy and light because Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. There's
not a sin that can be laid to the charge of His people. There's
not a sin that the law can say, ah, you failed. No, not for His child, not at
all. It's all fulfilled. He fulfilled
everything. Christ, oh, He makes you to take
His light and easy yoke. If He makes you to take it, if
He makes you to take it, If He makes you to come learn of Him,
to come and be taught by Him and to come and be taught about
Him. That's what it means to learn
of Him. To be taught by Him and to be taught about Him. Christ
doesn't teach His disciple like the lawmonger does. He doesn't
teach His disciple like the moralist does. He doesn't waste your time
with a 15 or 20 minute introduction about stuff that don't matter.
He gets right to the Word of God. He doesn't waste your time
about intellectualism and waste your time about things that you're
not going to care at all about in those 15 minutes before you
meet God in eternity. He deals with what's needful.
He deals with what's important. Christ doesn't load you down
with do's and don'ts. Christ unloads His child teaching,
it's done. It's done. It's all done. Christ says, come unto me. What does that mean? What is
it to come to Christ? What does that mean? What is
it to believe on Christ? To come unto Christ? What does
that mean? There's no other way to be saved
other than coming unto Christ. There's no other way to be accepted
of holy God than coming to Christ. Now he says, come unto me. But
preacher, you just read to me that I can't come. You just read
to me that no man can except the Father draw him. When He
gives you the command to come unto Him, He'll give you the
strength to come unto Him. He'll give you the willingness
to come unto Him. He'll give you everything you need to come
unto Him. But what does it mean to come
unto Him? Come unto me. It means to believe
on Him. Thomas Brooks said, He that believeth
shall be saved. Let his sins be ever so great. And he that believeth not shall
be damned. Let his sins be ever so little. But what is it to come to Christ?
That's our subject this morning. Coming to Christ. What does that
mean? Well, coming to Christ is the
action of the new man in spirit and in truth. That's what coming
to Christ is. I want to show you five aspects
of what it is to come to Christ. And I'm going to spend the bulk
of my time on this first thing, because this is the most important
of all. Coming to Christ is coming to His person, to the person,
to Christ Himself. He said, come unto me. That's what He said. Not to doctrine. not to a preacher or a priest,
not to a man-made altar, not to baptism, not to a church,
not to a denomination. He said, to me. Come unto me. Recently, a friend told me how
that a preacher keeps heaping all of her sins upon her. Just
continually, continually reminding her of all of her personal sins
and just keeps bringing them up to her until she's weeping
bitterly and just can't hold her head up anymore. And then
He keeps heaping upon her this large creed that she's got to
learn. And He tells her, you've got
to know this creed or you can't be saved. This is how He's going
to save you through learning this creed. And she asked me,
how much doctrine do I have to know before I can be saved? How much doctrine do I have to
know before my sins are not brought up anymore? How much doctrine
do I have to know before I'm not made to weep bitterly anymore
like this? And I'm not whipped with my sins
anymore? And I'm not berated with my sins
anymore? How much do I have to learn? Christ said, come unto me. But the preacher, Christ is the
preacher. He's the prophet. He said, come
unto me. But what about my sin? He said,
come unto me. That's what he said. Come to
me. Now doctrine It's teaching. That's what doctrine is. It's
teaching. It's how we learn about who God is and about how God
saves. Doctrine is good. It's not a
dirty word. It's good. Doctrine is good.
We need to be taught. We need to learn. Doctrine is
being taught. True doctrine turns us away from
ourselves and turns us to Christ. True doctrine teaches us who
He is. The Lord Jesus Christ is God
the Son. That's doctrine. That's teaching. I just taught you. God the Son
is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is God.
He's God the Son. God in human flesh. That's who
He is. True doctrine teaches us that Christ is God the Father's
elect servant in whom He delights. He said, my soul delights in
Him. That's in Isaiah 42. That's who He is. He's God's
elect. God chose Him to serve before Him. That's doctrine. I'm teaching you. True doctrine
teaches us that before making the world, God entered into an
everlasting covenant with God. God entered into covenant with
God. And because He did that and left nothing to man, left
nothing to His people, that covenant is ordered in all things and
that covenant is sure. And when He makes this everlasting
covenant in the hearts of His people, He doesn't make a lateral
covenant. He makes a covenant to let you
know it's all done. And this covenant is all our
salvation. It's all our salvation. That's what David said over in
2 Samuel 3 and verse 5. That's doctrine. This doctrine
of this Bible teaches us that God has, from the beginning,
chosen His people to salvation. And He tells us how. Through
sanctification of the Spirit, we'll be born of God. They're
going to be born of God in belief of the truth. They're going to
be given faith and they're going to believe. They're responsible
to and they're going to. And it's going to be done in
time when He calls each one by our Gospel to the obtaining of
the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. The doctrine of this book says
that when the fullness of time was come, God the Father sent
forth His Son made of a woman because His children were flesh
and blood, made under the law because He came to fulfill the
law, and He came to redeem them that were under the law. to redeem
them, to pay all the debt they owe, to purchase them completely,
to... obtain for them eternal freedom,
eternal redemption from the curse, from the condemnation, and give
them freedom to worship God in spirit and in truth. This is
what He came to do. And because you're sons, He did
this that we might receive the adoption of sons, that we might
be brought into this union and see that He adopted us before
the foundation of the world. And because you are sons, You
see, because you are sons, you don't believe and become sons.
Because you are sons from the foundation of the world, by His
grace, because you are sons, He sends forth the Spirit into
your hearts and we cry, Abba, Father. That's what true doctrine
is. That's what the Bible teaches.
It teaches us Christ fulfilled the law in every jot and tittle
for His people. teaches us that God was in Christ
reconciling the world of His elect unto Himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them. Because He hath made Him sin
for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. What do I have to have to come
into God's presence? You've got to be made the righteousness
of God. That's what you've got to be
made. But you and I can't do that. That's why He sent His
Son. If there was anything about our
salvation we could do, God would not have sent His Son. But He
sent His Son because there was nothing His people could do.
He sent His Son. And the doctrine teaches us that
Christ is that righteousness that exceeds the righteousness
of the scribes and the Pharisees. This is that righteousness that
we have to have. And when He calls us, effectually
He makes Christ's righteousness unto us. Christ is that holiness
without which no man can see the Lord. He's that holiness
that the thief on the cross had when he had both his hands and
his feet nailed to the cross and God made him to behold His
Redeemer. This is that holiness. No man
can come without it. And this is that holiness every
man has to have. Because He made Christ under
that thief on the cross, He made Him sanctification. And Christ
is that sanctification. This book teaches us that by
the Spirit of God He regenerates His child. And He grants us repentance. And He gives us the gift of faith.
And He makes us to call on Him because He's given us the mind
of Christ. He's made Christ wisdom unto
us. He's made Christ righteousness
unto us. He's made Christ's sanctification
unto us. He's made Christ's redemption
unto us. And by doing so, here we were
all proud and lifted up and thinking we were somebody because all
we knew and all we had learned and all we had done and all we
had studied and how far we had come. And all of a sudden, He
made us who thought we were something, nothing. By showing us Him who
is somebody. And He made us nothing so that
we wouldn't glory in His presence. So that no flesh would glory
in His presence. And by showing us Christ, He
made us to glory in the Lord. All of that's doctrine. All of
that's teaching about Him. And this book teaches us that
we do not make void the law through faith as we be slandered by some
who call us antinomian. But see, we have such a desire
for the law to be fulfilled, we don't dare lie to anybody
and tell anybody that they can keep it. God wouldn't have sent
His Son if we could. He sent His Son to fulfill everything. And He magnified. And this is
the truth. The Lord is well pleased for
His righteousness sake. Christ has magnified the law.
He's made it honorable. And we have in Him, through faith,
That's true of all His people. We don't make void the law through
faith. No, we establish the law through faith in our redeeming.
True doctrine teaches us that our God is able to keep His people
from falling and to present us faultless before the presence
of His glory with exceeding joy. He is the only wise God, our
Savior, to whom be glory and majesty, dominion and power,
both now and forever. Amen. Now, we do indeed love
true doctrine. We love it. We do indeed. We love the doctrine of the sovereign
grace of God, the free grace of God. We love it. We love to
hear it. We love to proclaim it. But listen
carefully to me now. You can know all of this true
doctrine and perish never having met the person. never having
come to Christ Jesus himself. One time when I was in college,
I got word from some friends that there was a man that wanted
me to take him fishing. And his name was... I forgot his name. His name was
Joe Ferguson. And I didn't know him. And somebody
told me, well, he, he was a professional football player, years ago, and
he played, he was a quarterback for the Buffalo Bills. So I went
to the library, and I sat down at the library, and I got, I
got some books about Joe Ferguson. And I sat down and I read them,
because I want to know about this film, I want to know who
he was. And I sat down and read these books. And I found out
a lot of stuff about him. I read a lot of a lot of things
about him. And I thought, well, I know who he is now. And then
I met him. And he was taller than I thought
he was going to be. I had read about some stories
about him, about some football games he played in. And then
he told me about those football games he played in. And it was
a world of difference from what I read about him and what he
told me about him. He breathed life into those stories. He made me just know know him. Before, I knew him in the letter.
I knew him by book learning. But then after I met him, I knew
him in person. I knew him by experience. I knew
him. This is what I'm talking about.
This is a made up scenario. But let me try to give you this
scenario. Maybe it will help you understand what I'm talking
about. about the purpose of doctrine is to bring us to Christ. It's
not to make us latch hold of that doctrine and preach about
everything about our doctrine and about where it came from
and all this stuff. It's the purpose of it is to
lead us to Christ. The purpose of it is to turn
us to Christ, to Him. If we're not doing that in what
we're teaching, then we need to shut up and get out of the
way because we're wasting sinners' time who's on the brink of hell. This thing's serious now. It's
serious. God's going to hold us accountable
for every word that's spoken in vain when we could have been
speaking about His Son. And so, this is a story. Let's say a mother is talking
to her children. She's telling her children about
their father. About how years ago he drove
out of his way, way across town, to purchase a gift for her. And
she's sitting down with her children and she's telling them about
how he had purchased this expensive gift. That's like doctrine. That's like telling the good
news. Telling this story of what happened. What was a fact. What
truly happened. And so she says their father
did it and surprised her. Completely surprised her in the
special way that he gave her this gift. Well, that reveals
that their father's got a romantic side about him. That reveals
something about him, his person. And then she says, the husband
bought the gift simply because he just overheard me talking
one day and I was talking to some friends and he overheard
that and found out I wanted this certain gift and he went and
bought that gift for me just from hearing that over here.
And that reveals something about his character, something about
the fact that he wants to please their mother, that he wants to
see their mother provided for, he wants to see their mother
happy. And that he listens for something and listens and looks
for ways that he can do something to please her. And then she says
that her husband bought this gift because he worked overtime,
worked a bunch of hours and sacrificed much to buy her this gift. He
could have went fishing this day that it was the day he went
and bought this gift, but he didn't go fishing. He went over
there and bought this gift for her because he wanted her to
have this gift. That reveals something about
how he's willing to sacrifice for their mother. That reveals
something about his character to give above and beyond for
their mother. Now, you see, the husband did
all these things and by his work it reveals to the children the
character of their father. It reveals to them about the
person of their father. Now when she's finished telling
them this story, does the report endear their hearts to latch
on to the report? or to their father? Does it endear
them to the work? When they hear about the work
that he did, does it endear them to lay hold of the work he did?
Or to lay hold of their father? And hug their father? And praise
their father? Oh, they might love to go and
tell the story again because it's about their father. And
they want others to know about their father. But they're not
holding on to the story. They're holding on to their father. You see what I'm saying? As believers,
we love to hear the Gospel. We're thankful for the doctrine.
We're thankful for the doctrine of electing grace, of redeeming
grace, of regenerating grace, of His immutability and His unchanging
love for His people. We love to hear about His longsuffering
and His holiness and how He will by no means clear the guilty
about how He's a just God, holy and righteous and all of these
things because These things tell us about Him. They tell us about
the character of our God. That's why we like to hear them.
We're not laying hold of the doctrine. We're laying hold of
Him. It's Christ who saves us. We come to Christ. We rest in
Christ. We hope in Christ. We rely upon
Christ. Not doctrine and not our knowledge. It's not our knowledge. Him. It's just Him. Christ said, this
is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God. And Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast
sent. This is eternal life. This is
the record. Here's the report. Here's the
testimony. Here's the witness. Here's the
gospel. God hath given unto us eternal
life. This life's in His Son. It's
free. It's a gift. It's eternal. And
it's in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life. And he that hath not the Son
of God hath not life. Now listen to this. These things
have I written unto you that... I've done it for this purpose.
Here's why I've preached this to you. Here's why I've written
this to you. Here's why I've told you these
things. So you can lay hold of this doctrine. No. I've wrote this to you that believe
on the name of the Son of God, that you might know that you
have eternal life, and that you might believe on the name of
the Son of God. I've done it that you might believe
on Him. That's why. You see what I'm saying? This
is why. Salvation is freely given to all who believe. To all who believe on the living
person, the Lord Jesus Christ, on that one who's seated at the
right hand of the Father right now. Christ is all, not baptism. Christ is all, not confirmation. Christ is all, not a denomination. Christ is all, not a creed. Christ
is all, not the bread and the wine at His table. It's the one
the bread and the wine reminds us of. He's all. He's all. Oh, I love that. Christ is all. What is your need? Christ is
all. What does that mean? It means
Christ is all. What do I do with that? You rest. Christ is all. Christ is all. Come to Christ. Believe Christ.
Rest in Christ. Rely upon Christ. My faith has
found a resting place. Not in defiance. Not in creed. I trust the ever-living One. His wounds for me shall plead. It's a person whom God has set
forth to be a propitiation through His blood. If any man sin, we
have an advocate with the Father. The doctrine of election. The doctrine of limited atonement.
No, that's not going to make advocacy for us with the Father.
Jesus Christ the righteous and He is the propitiation for our
sins. Doctrine endears Christ to us. That's the purpose of it. It
leads us to Christ. It teaches us He's everything.
Because it pleased the Father that He have all preeminence. It pleased the Father that in
Him should all fullness dwell. And I'll tell you something that's
going to happen. The pleasure of the Lord is going to prosper
in His hand. I had a man tell me one time, Christ is not all. Can you imagine? I just said,
you're going to have to take that up with God. I don't know
what to tell you. To say Christ is not all? Alright,
that's the first thing now. This leads us to Christ. That's
the first thing in coming to Christ. It's coming to the person.
Alright, here's the second thing. To come to Christ is to come
because we have a need that only He can supply. He's the only
one that can supply it. Do you need to be saved? From
what do you need to be saved? From what? The doctrine of total
depravity is summed up in Romans 3.10. This is it. There's none
righteous, no not one. There's none that understandeth.
There's none that seeketh after God. Did you hear that? There's none that seeketh after
God. Contrary to popular belief, there's none that seeketh after
God. They're all gone out of the way. They all together become
unprofitable. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. Now that's the doctrine of total
depravity. But depravity has got to be more to us than a doctrine.
We've got to be made to look in the mirror and realize I'm
the one that's depraved. You've got to be made to realize
you're the depravity. You are. You are. Have you seen
that you're the worm? God said, your iniquities have
separated between you and your God. And your sins have hid His
face from you that He will not hear. Have you seen that? Have
you seen that? Spiritually, David's bones were
broken. They were broken. Look at Psalm
51. Psalm 51. This is how he cried. Psalm 51. You see, when we break the law. When we do something outwardly
like David did, he committed adultery with Bathsheba, then
he tried to cover it up by getting her husband drunk, and when he
wouldn't go down to Bathsheba's house, he ended up sending him
to the forefront of the battle and he died in battle. And Nathan
the prophet came to him and said, You're the man, David. You've
done this in God's sight. But when something like that
brings our sin to the forefront of our attention, it does more
than that. It makes us to see sin is what
we are in every bit of our being. And listen to what he cried out.
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness, according
unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions. wash me throughly from mine iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin. That means it goes deeper than
my hands and my feet and my eyes and my bodily members. For I
acknowledge my transgressions and my sin as ever before me. Against thee and thee only have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest
be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest.
In sin did my mother conceive me, See, he's saying, I'm totally
undone. I'm totally undone. Have you
been made to be the depravity? You see, there's a great difference
between the way that the Pharisee comes to God and the way the
publican comes to him that's been made to see his sin. The
Pharisee comes to God and he stands there and he prays with
himself and he says, Oh, I thank you that I'm not like other men
are. They're extortioners and they're unjust and they're adulterers.
Even as this publican right here, I fast twice in a week and I
give tithes of all that I possess. Men may not outwardly say that.
Men have learned over the years of reading these scriptures and
hearing good sermons preached, not to say that with these lips.
But they do it in every action, they think it in every thought. by pulling out the yoke of the
law again, for one thing, and trying to bring sinners under
the yoke of the law. They're climbing up by the law
on top of men's shoulders and saying, I've not done what you've
done. Yes, you have. In Romans chapter
2, Paul said, Who are you that judges? You've done the same
thing. Done the exact same thing. But
here's how the publican prays, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. What else you bringing? A plea
for mercy, that's all. God be merciful to me, a sinner.
I tell you this, Christ said, that man went down to his house
justified rather than the other. Just before our text here, the
Master was describing the proud intellectual religious men who
had rejected John and who had rejected God, Christ Jesus Himself. He said, He called them childish. He called them a bunch of peevish
kids in the marketplace playing pretend funeral and pretend wedding.
And he said, this was their problem. Verse 18 and 19. Look there.
He says, the son of man came eating and drinking. Let's see,
verse 18. John came neither eating nor
drinking. They said, he's got a devil. And he said, the son
of man came eating and drinking, and they say, behold, a man gluttonous
and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom
is justified of her children. He said, Father, I thank you
that you've hidden these things from the wise and prudent. I
thank you that you've hidden these things from the wise and
prudent and revealed them unto babes, for so it seemed good
in thy sight. And then he said, now, come unto
me. But you know what their problem
was? They didn't have a need, Robbie. They didn't have a need. If we're going to come to Him,
we've got to come to Him with a need. That's the second thing
involved here. If we're going to come to Him,
we've got to come with a need. We have to come out of a need,
a desperate need. We have to be made to see that
we can do nothing to please God. Nothing to make ourselves accepted
with God. The Lord said it, meet in the
house, and publicans and sinners came in there and they sat down
with Him and His disciples. You know there's a lot of churches
that don't even want sinners there. My friend that I've been
talking to, they won't let her come and confess Christ in believers
baptism because she's too much of a sinner. She's got to learn
some things first and put away her sin and clean up her act.
It's ridiculous. That's like telling men they
can't go to a hospital until they get well. Christ had all
these sinners and publicans sitting down at His table with Him after
He had saved Levi. And they said unto His disciples,
Why eateth your master with publicans and sinners? You think men are
doing that today? Yeah. They're doing the same
thing. Oh, I know about those folks
down there. There's some sinners down there.
They're lewd sinners too. Harlots, publicans and sinners. I wouldn't have anything to do
with them. Christ said, I didn't come to call the righteous. I
came to call sinners to repentance. Go find out what that means.
Go find out. Try to find out what that means.
So you come to Christ with all your need, with all your sin,
expecting to find in Christ everything you need. That's how you come.
So first of all, you come to the person. And then secondly,
you come because you got the need of salvation.
You can't do a thing for yourself. Come with all your sin, with
everything you are. Come and confess it to Him. Confess
it to Him. Don't confess it to me. Don't
confess it to anybody. Come confess it to Him. And then
thirdly, coming to Christ means we got to forsake every other
confidence but Him. Everything but Him. The only
way you can come to Christ is to be persuaded that not you,
not anyone else, not anything else is able to save you except
Him. You've got to forsake everything
else. Forsake our works. Forsake our high opinion of ourselves.
Forsake our so-called righteousness. That's what I guarantee you,
if you're not coming to Christ, that is what's keeping you from
Christ. Your righteousnesses. That's right. That's right. If you're made to see your sins,
you'll come. As long as you think you don't need Him, because you're
righteous, you won't come. It's righteousnesses that are
keeping them from Him. Paul said this, listen to this
now, if there's anything that will give you hope of acceptance
with God other than Christ, check it at the door. You got to leave
that behind and come to Him. Just drop it. Come to Him only.
Empty handed. Paul said this. We are the circumcision. We are the true believer. We
are the true law keeper. We are the true God honoring
saint. Right here. Who worship God in
the Spirit. That's where we worship God.
It's like I said a while ago, men have the letter, but when
He gives you the Spirit, that's when you know Him. We worship
God in the Spirit, and we rejoice in Christ Jesus, and we have
no confidence in the flesh. None whatsoever. Paul said, if
any man has confidence in the flesh, I've got more reason to
have it. And he went through that whole
list of things he was. And while he was all those things,
Paul did not come to God. He did not come to Christ when
he had all that stuff. Because he had confidence in
that. But he said, but what things were gained of me, those I counted
lost for Christ. And he says, and I count them
but dung, that I might win Christ and be found in Him, not having
mine own righteousness, but the righteousness which is of God,
the righteousness which is of the faith of Christ, of God by
faith. Christ is the only salvation.
He's the only salvation. There's no salvation in any other.
There's no other name under heaven whereby we must be saved. He's
the only one salvation is in. And salvation is all of grace,
it's not of works. It's all of grace. If it's by
grace, then it's no more of works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace.
But if it be of works, then it's no more grace. Otherwise, work
is no more work. So we come to Him forsaking anything
else we might have confidence in. And here's the fourth thing. We come to Christ being persuaded
that He's able to commit all that we've entrusted to Him.
We come believing He's able. to keep everything that we commit
to Him. Paul said, I know whom I have
believed and I'm persuaded that He is able to keep that which
I've committed unto Him against that day. We won't have any faith
or any acceptance with God until we commit everything to Christ. Everything committed to Him.
Believe in He's able to keep that which we've committed to
Him. And when we've committed our care to Him, then we need
to get out of the way and trust He'll save us. That's right. You know when a man's drowning,
a lifeguard goes to save him, he don't go out there right away
and grab ahold to the man. He waits till he's unconscious
or almost unconscious. so that he can save him without
the man getting in the way. That's what we have to do. We
have to commit everything to him and get out of the way. Get
completely out of the way. Peter was doing fine when he
was going across that sea. You know when he started sinking
down? When he looked to the waves. He looked away from Christ. He
ceased committing it all to Christ. That's when he started sinking
down. that when he saw the wind boisterous, that's when he started
saying, he was afraid. How did he see the wind boisterous
if he was looking at Christ? He wasn't. He started looking
at the wind and the waves and he sank down. And the Lord said,
when he stretched out his hand and lifted him up, the Lord said,
O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? That's what
happened. He stopped having it all committed
to Christ. Why is it that sometimes we're
so confident, and we're at peace in our hearts, even though the
waves are roaring all around us? And then other times, we're
terrified, and it may not even be waves all that bad roaring
around us. What's the difference? What happened? When we believe
on Christ, we're confident. When we believe on Christ, we're
confident. When we trust it to Him and commit
it to Him, we're confident. We're confident. And we've got
every reason to be. But when we look away, we become
afraid. And we've got every reason to
be. There's nothing that will be able to keep us. Commit everything
to Christ and get out of the way, and He'll keep that which
you've committed unto Him. This is our resolve right here.
Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. I'll trust Him. And then fifthly, Here's the
fifth thing. Coming to Christ means we submit
to His Lordship and obey Him. We submit to Him. Christ has
got to be our Lord as well as our Savior. We don't... Jesus don't save us. The Lord
Jesus Christ is who saves us. The Lord Jesus. He's got to be
our Lord. We've got to obey Him. Be willing
to obey Him. When these firefighters right
here, they go to a rescue, sometimes, Most often, they have to tell
the person they're going to rescue, you shut up and do what I tell
you to do. You got to do what I say to do. Otherwise, they can't save them.
Otherwise, they won't be saved. They got to be quiet and do what
they command them to do. Well, that's always the case
with Christ. Christ knows some of the last words He said before
He ascended to the Father. He said, He that believeth and
is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be
damned. That's as clear cut and straight
forward as you can get, plain as you can get. He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved. And when He said baptized there,
baptism stands for obedience. That's what he's saying. Because
it means he that believes and is obedient to Christ, beginning
with a public confession and believer's baptism, he'll be
saved. That's what baptism is. Water
baptism is a first public act of obedience by the believer.
By baptism, we're confessing we're under the rule of Christ,
walking in newness of life. I can't read it all to you now.
I'm out of time. Go read Romans 6. Read Romans 6. What shall
we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? Now listen to this. God forbid. How shall we? What does that
usually mean when you say that in everyday conversation? How
shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? I don't
see a whole lot of dead men doing anything, do you? Well, we're
dead to sin. We can't continue in it. Before
God, we can't continue in sin because God says our old man
is dead. He died with Christ. He died
with Him. We can't continue in sin. And as many of us as have been
baptized into His death have put on Christ, that like as Christ
was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even
so we also should walk in newness of life. That's what we're saying
when we're baptized. We're going to walk in newness
of life. Baptism don't save. Baptism never saved anybody.
There was a thief on a cross that never was baptized. And
he was saved. But we're talking about obedience
here. If we've been planted together
in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness
of His resurrection. Knowing this, our old man is
crucified with Him. It is. And the body of sin is
destroyed. And henceforth we should not
serve sin. For he that's dead is freed from sin. If we be dead with Christ, we
believe we'll also live with Him. Knowing that Christ being
raised from the dead doth no more, death has no more dominion
over Him. For in that He died, He died
unto sin once. He don't have any more dominion
over us either. But in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise
reckon ye yourselves also to be dead indeed unto sin. dead
indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body. Now he's
talking about a different body. Your old man, that old man, he's
dead. Now he says, now concerning that
body of death that you're carrying around, don't let it have its
way. Seeing as how this is true, that
God says, I don't remember your sin. They cast behind my back.
And He gives us this assurance. He says, for sin shall not have
dominion over you, for you're not under the law, you're under
grace. Yield your members to righteousness. Yield your members
to Christ. I'll tell you this. It doesn't mean a sinner has
come to Christ because he stops cussing and he stops getting
drunk and he stops committing adultery and every other outward
sin. That doesn't mean he's come to Christ. That don't mean he
believes on Christ because he's reformed his life. But those
who do come to Christ, we'd stop every known sin that we know
of right now today if we could. Wouldn't you? You preach sovereign
grace. If I believed that, I'd sin all...
You're telling a man he can sin all he wants to. A believer sins
more than he wants to. And he don't want to sin at all. And if we could be freed from
this body today, we'd be freed from this body today. If we could
be freed from the evil thoughts, we'd be freed from it. If we
could never have another dream that's ungodly, we would. I'm
talking about the thoughts that run to evil. Can you control
them? No, you can't control them. I
guarantee you, you can't. Fooling yourself if you think
you can. But those who believe, we want to be freed from it.
We want to be freed from it. It doesn't mean that a sinner's
been saved because he starts reading his Bible and he starts
going to church and he starts praying. That don't mean he's
been called and he's believed on Christ and he's come to Christ.
But the believer that has, has a desire now in his heart to
read his word and to hear his gospel priest and approach his
throne of grace. He has a heart to do those things.
because he's been called by the grace of God. He wants to hear
his master. He's got a new master now who
rules and reigns over him. And it's by his strength alone
that sin will not prevail over us. True faith is always accompanied
by works of obedience to Christ. Always. When you're constrained
by the love of someone, you want to please them. Don't you? That's true. But faith without
works is dead. James said, as the body without
the Spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. How
dead was your body before the Spirit of God entered into you?
Totally dead. He said, well, faith without
works is just that dead. It's just that dead. When Christ
is formed in a sinner, a new man's born, and Christ becomes
our master. That's when we begin to hate
sin, hate everything about our old man, hate everything about
that fleshly man that's born of Adam, and that's when we desire
to walk in a way that's honorable to God and pleasing unto Him.
And that's when the warfare starts. Paul said, I delight in the law
of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members,
warring against the law of my mind, bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin which is in my members. And he said, O wretched
man that I am, who's going to deliver me from this body of
death? I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord. So then with
the mind, I myself serve the law of God with my inward man.
But with the flesh, the law of sin. It's what it's always been
and it will be what it's going to be until the day it goes back
to the dust. It's the product of Adam. Well,
here's the last thing. I guess I had six things. Here's
the last thing. First, we want to come to His
person. And secondly, you come with a
need. You come knowing that you can't save yourself. You come
forsaking every other thing. Every other confidence. There's
nothing else. And you come, whatever the other thing was, you have
to go back and listen to it. I can't remember now. But here's the
last thing. When we come to Christ, we don't
ever stop coming to Christ. You see, this thing of coming
to Christ is not coming to Christ and now we got that taken care
of, now we're going to get on with what we really want to get
on with. That's not coming to Christ. Coming to Christ God
doesn't save us in such a way that we can walk away from the
Gospel. He doesn't. He renews us day by day. You're
saved through the foolishness of priesthood. Please God to
do it that way because it keeps us assembling together with the
saints because we have to be renewed every day by this Gospel
and Him refreshing us and cleansing us and our inner man and strengthening
us. And then we'll go out and we'll
start starving in this world. Oh, we're eating up this world.
That old man's getting stronger and stronger and stronger and
our new man's getting weaker and weaker and weaker. And we
come back in and we hear the gospel preached and that old
man is made weaker and weaker and weaker and that inward man
is strengthened. And we go back out, and the same thing happens
again. He keeps on, and he's done that on purpose to keep
his saints together, because he's purposed to call out more
saints through his saints, and if he wasn't keeping us together,
there wouldn't be a church to be calling out those saints that
are yet to be called. It's wisdom, brethren. I'm telling
you, it's wisdom on wisdom why God does this. So, to whom coming,
Peter said, if you've tasted that the Lord is gracious, you'll
be like a newborn baby desiring that mother's milk, that sincere
milk of the word, that true milk of the word. And he says, to
whom coming, to whom coming as a living stone, disallowed indeed
of the fathers, but chosen of God and precious. It was a great
delusion of some in Paul's day that after they had begun in
the Spirit, they would be made perfect by the flesh. And that's
a delusion of men in our day. You're not going to be sanctified
by your flesh. It's not going to happen. As
I've said to you before, that's a dirty mop trying to clean a
dirty mop. And all you end up with is a
twice dirty floor when that happens. We're sanctified by Christ. He's
our sanctification. And the Spirit of God turns us
from our flesh and ourselves and this world and turns us to
Him. And it's in Him that we're cleansed. It's in Him that we're separated.
It's in Him that we're kept from the evil. He's the Word whereby
we're kept from the evil. Christ is all. Christ is all. You have come to Christ when
Christ is your all. And until Christ is your all,
It doesn't matter what you've done, you have not come to Christ. Let that sink in, that's true. When Christ is all, you have
come to Christ. If Christ is not all, you have
not come to Him. Have not come to Him. We're not
merely looking to Christ for these things. Christ is these
things to us. He's our pardon. He's our cleansing. He's our forgiveness. He's our
reconciliation. He's our covenant. He's our wisdom.
He's our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption. He's everything
we need and more. That's who He is. Because Christ
is all. Now read there what He says to
you in the verse. He says, Come unto Me. Come unto me, all ye that are
weary and heavy laden. Are you laboring? Are you heavy
laden? He says, come unto me. I'll give
you rest. I'm meek and I'm lowly of heart.
I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me. My yoke's light, my burden's easy. Have you been burdened
down today? If what you are today burdens
you down, but you can't preach peace, peace where there is no
peace, I don't think I'm doing that. I think everybody's hearing
me loud and clear. I know it. I'll know it when
men say there's got to be more to it than that. I'll know you
heard me loud and clear. Christ is all. Christ is all. Christ is all. Amen.