us to turn to that chapter that
we read this morning, 2 Corinthians and chapter 5. It's a lovely chapter. I was
going to say at the beginning of this epistle, the 2nd Corinthian
epistle, in a and I'm guilty of this, we sometimes neglect
in our ministry, we love to go to Romans, we go to Galatians,
we go to Ephesians, we go to Hebrews, but it's a lovely epistle
and it's a very feeling epistle, I'm sure you know that, when
Paul opens up his heart and tells you how he feels about the church
and how he feels about his own experience, there's a lot in
this epistle I was talking to Jill and we were saying there
are a lot of memorable phrases, although they may not be one
of the epistles we necessarily know as well as others, but as
we read through that chapter I'm sure you noted some of the
verses in there and they come to us so strongly. being confident
that whilst we are at home in the body we are absent in the
Lord. We walk by faith and not by sight.
I'm sure that's something that perhaps comes to us not infrequently. Or we all appear before the judgment
seat of Christ, we read. We don't commend ourselves, says
Paul. And in verse 20, we are ambassadors
for Christ. And verse 21, made him to be
sin, for us who knew no sin, and so on. We could go through
this epistle in many memorable and quotable verses. It's a wonderful,
wonderful epistle. Now what I want to think about
this morning is a key part of the doctrine of salvation. I
often say that the truth, the gospel, is like a precious diamond,
and a really lovely diamond has many faces or facets. and you
only kind of see the whole diamond by looking at all the facets,
all these different bits of truth. They all come together. We can't
just take them in isolation. We need to see the totality of
the Gospel. And this morning we want to think
about reconciliation. It's something perhaps not often
thought about or preached on, in particular verses 18 and 19. and all things are of God who
have reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and have given
to us the ministry of reconciliation to wit that means to understand
that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing
their trespasses unto them and have committed unto us the word
of reconciliation and what we have to as always say is that
what we see here to be the truth isn't necessarily that which
most people who profess Christ actually believe. We have to
be clear in our doctrines. We talk about free grace, free
and sovereign grace, but what we mean is that God is sovereign
in the matter of salvation. People will desperately try to
make it otherwise and try to tell you and erect whatever system
that is otherwise. We need to be clear what Paul
is saying here. What is this ministry of reconciliation? What was Christ doing? I think we shall see it's clear
in these verses. This isn't the usual reconciliation.
When we come to scriptural reconciliation, as often in the scripture, we
need to be very clear. If I fall out with terrorism,
I'm not intending to do, and there'll be a round of arguments,
you would say, you two need to be reconciled. You need to sort
this out, you've got to come to an agreement, and you've got
to come and shake hands, say I'm sorry, or whatever, and fix
it. My dear wife, we don't always
agree. And when you have loved ones, you don't always agree,
do you? But I never felt we ever needed to be reconciled because
we have that love for us in the Lord Jesus Christ and we thank
God for that. But that doesn't mean we're not
perfect. You've got loved ones you know who don't always agree.
You might get angry at times. You don't need to be reconciled.
But the reconciliation in the Scripture is totally different.
God doesn't need us to be reconciled to Him. God is all perfection. God is holy and just. We've had
other words, haven't we? It's almost impossible, haven't
we? Describe God and his characteristics. It's beyond us, isn't it? The
scriptures try and they're wonderful. But we are the sinners. We are
the ones who need to be reconciled. And so we see here a great truth
that this is not, we're not thinking of the normal reconciliation,
two agreed parties. have got somehow to be brought
together and it's got to be sorted in some way. That is not the
truth that we see in this and we need to see that. We need
to see in this reconciliation it's a mark of God's great love
for the sinner. Now if I said to you, why does
God love the sinner? You go to some churches and say,
oh well, because this person is a saintly person. This person
did many wonderful things. This person went out and served
as a missionary for many years. This person works amongst the
poor in the slums and all the rest of it. I can't tell you
that. Why? Why does God love us? We don't know. How can we explain
the love of God? How can God as all perfection
love us who are sinful? But he does. And we can't give
a reason. He can love people even like
that. Boniface was on the cross. Never
done anything in his life. Lived a life probably of crime
and evil, murder. And yet he's saved. I remember
talking to a family member who read a book about this and said
I don't think that was fair. Why should he be saved? He never
did anything. Isn't that the point? We don't
do anything. We're no better than that manufacturer. We shall
see. If so may we be saved. It's only
by the love of God. But there is a need for reconciliation.
The world around us thinks they're okay. You know that. You try
talking to me about the gospel. People think they're alright.
I remember when I used to go in, those free will people, Arminian
people, I used to talk about God-shaped void, everybody with
them that really has a desire for God and you've got to wake
it up. They don't. The word of God says
they're lost, aren't they? Desperately lost in sin. We were
once. Until God came. Until life came. Christ came. We had that revelation of Christ.
to our souls. Then we had a spiritual interest,
we didn't have it naturally before. So we are here in the heart of
the Gospel. What is wrong? Why is there a
reconciliation? Because God is all-perfection. It's beyond our description.
He dwells in that light which cannot be approached. The description
of God is really darkness. People want to deny that, don't
they? You say to people you are a sinner, you can't say it to
them. People get very offended. If you tell them they are a sinner,
they are lost in darkness, but they are, because they can't
see the truth. We need to be reconciled. And we see here God's great love. We are lost in Adam. Again, we
go back to the book of Revelation. People say it's all full of myths.
We read in the newspapers almost daily things about the Bible
and evolution. I think I've mentioned before,
I got at home, I was confirmed as a young boy in the Church
of England. And I've got my confirmation book. at home and it was on my
shelf and I was looking at things to bring when we had my 70th
tea, which was a lovely occasion, things to show people from my
past. And I looked in there and it said the Bible. It said the
first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis are myth. And I was
given that by the Bishop of Croydon. I thought, well, looking back
I thought, what a terrible thing to give a young boy. The first
11 books of the Bible are myth. So you just get your scissors
out, get rid of them. But there's Adam. We sin in Adam. You take away Genesis. Is there sin in Adam? Is there
a fall? There's no offence. We're alright. As you know, you
take away those chapters, the crucial chapters. They tell you
all that you need to know about the foundations of this world,
the situation that we are faced, the relationship between man
and God, the nature of the world we're in, are all in those 11
chapters. You take them away, you're lost.
They're struggling. It's crucial that we believe
these things. We sin in Adam. Now, people will
say, that's not fair, he sinned, why am I guilty? But it's the
nature, human nature, he was our representative, as we know.
And there are two great representatives of humanity in Scripture. One
is Adam, the first Adam. Then there's the last Adam, there's
Christ. These things are clearly set
out, we need to understand. But also we are sinners in our
own right. Those things that we do, no man
can say I'm without sin. I have met people who believe
in holiness. I can remember one saint, he
was a dear saint, an elderly saint. He used to come to the
Park Baptist Church. He was a lovely man. We used
to give him a lift at times back home. But he believed at times, there
were times in his life when he was in prayer, that he was without
sin. And there are those who teach
this, there are holiness churches. In a sense I understand what
he's saying, what he was really saying, I think, was that in
his prayer times, he was a lovely godly man, he was caught up with
God, he was caught up to Christ, his thoughts were filled And
therefore that sort of underpinned his doctrine. But it's not the
case. We are sinners. And if we think otherwise, the
law needs to come to us and teach us. The law is of that purpose. The law taught sin. It taught
us what God's standards were. This is righteousness and we
cannot fulfil it. We cannot complete it. Only one
person was able to come and fulfil the law. Failed in anything,
even by an outer. That was Christ. We are unable
to fulfil that. We failed in one thing, we failed
in all of it. Again, people always say, well,
that's a very hard standard. Well, it's God's standards. God's
standards are perfection. It's what James says, for whosoever
shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is
guilty of all. That's James 2nd chapter verse
10. And people will say, oh that's
James, he's not really the gospel, we're not sure about the epistle
to James. Well, it is the gospel. It is
the truth. The law has a purpose. I like
the way that Paul says, it's our schoolmaster. Now, the word
schoolmaster, I think those of you who have gone into this,
it wasn't quite the schoolmaster or schoolteacher. It was rather
more the person who made sure you went to school. It was the
servant who got you there, got you to your education. And in
a sense, The law is that which takes you, takes you to see holiness
of God, the righteousness of God and it teaches you that you're
a sinner and it's a very necessary part of God's dealing with us,
that we understand the fall and how we're saved. You have to
say it today, people still think you're saved by religion. And
today as you probably know, if you go to school and elsewhere,
religion is seen as a supermarket. You pick you go off and pick
one off the shelf that suits you and this is multi-faith and
you can have the Islam and Confucianism and Buddhism, Christianity or
whatever and they all go to God isn't it fantastic so it doesn't
really matter therefore when we have great services in Canterbury
Cathedral we have the Chief Rabbi there and we have the Imams there
all the rest of it in there but it's a lie I have no ill feeling
to these men, we should love all men before God as far as
possible, but in terms of salvation and the Christian church, it
is a lie. The Archbishop of Canterbury
isn't invited into the mosques for multi-faith services, they
know exactly where they stand, they don't believe in multi-faith
do they? The Rabbi doesn't believe in multi-faith, but they do believe
Many of these men are good men who believe in being peacefully
one with another. We mustn't confuse them necessarily
with the extremists. But religion? What is religion?
I can remember we were at a service up at Westminster Chapel. I think
it was the annual meeting of the Cemetery and Bible Society.
And they had that wonderful Welsh preacher Geoffrey Thomas there.
Now we know that Geoffrey Thomas isn't as free grace as we are,
he still is a free-offer man and he has a different view than
we do of the covenant of grace and in action really there is
free will in his preaching. I remember he was wonderful preaching
that day and his word, it sticks in my mind, was He kept coming
back to the wonderful Welsh accent, the lovely Welsh accent. Do,
he would say. And he was saying, that is people's
religion. I've got to do something. That's what people think, don't
they? And you can't be saved without saying something. You
haven't done enough. And the Roman Catholic Church said, you've
got to do more. You've got to come to more Masses. You've got to tell people this.
You've got to do more penances. You've got to say more prayers.
Because you committed that sin, the church will then lay out
things that... If you go and confess a sin to
the priest, he'll tell you all the things you've got to do to
be right with God. And they're all of no consequence.
They're all fallacies, aren't they? That's religion, whatever
religion it is. Islam, what is Islam? It's do,
isn't it? You've got to eat your food the
right way. You've got to put your clothes on the right way.
You've got to say the right words. You've got to know the right
people. You've got to pray five times a day. And if you're in
an office, now the office is going to provide you a room and
a mat and all this you can clear off for five times a day and
all the rest of it to do. And the picture of Allah you
get is terribly harsh, isn't it? What sort of God do you think
these ISIS people worship? Do you think that God has told
them to do, to go and slaughter people? And they think that by
doing that, they're going to paradise. When these radicalised
young people go from Britain to Syria, they're told, you go
out and you kill certain people, and you're killed fighting for
Allah, you go straight to paradise. You do. That is religion. That's
not the Christian religion. There's nothing you and I can
do. People find that very hard. I've talked to people and they
can't. I tell them that Christ has done it always. They don't
understand it. They're so indoctrinated with do and we must move on from
that ourselves. It's not required. We are unable
to do anything that pleases God. We often come back, as we must,
to Ephesians, those first two chapters. Aren't they so important
to us? To understand that it's all of
God. And however many times we say
it, we must continue to say it. We read, according as he hath
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in his love. He does that.
He has predestinated us and we have to accept all that he has
done for us. We cannot do anything for ourselves. We are in that death. We are not good enough. to verses,
here we see that we are lost. In chapter 2, you have quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sins. The words inserted in that
text, have been quickened, are bringing forward that which is
said later, because that is the intent of what is being said.
You have quickened, you have made alive, who were dead in
trespasses and sins, where in time past you walked. According
to the course of this world, according to the prince of the
power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children
of disobedience. If you say to people you're being
influenced by the evil one, they would deny it. Of course they
would. You can say you're not walking the way that pleases
God, people would be very offended. But I trust that we are those,
by the grace of God, who can see We are only alive because Christ
has made us alive. We need to be reconciled to God. This is where I come back to
you. This is why we need to be reconciled. These are essential
foundational truths. And we can't do this. We have
to tell people that. And people think, well, funny
religion. Strict Baptist. God has done
it. God has done it all. And you
say to people, they say, oh, that's a stupid religion. You
mean you can just carry on living as you were? No, of course not. You should do that. The heart
is changed. The will is changed. It's a hated
truth. If you believe what I'm saying
here, people say to you, oh, you're hyper-Calvinist. you know,
you're antinomian, you're saying you're against the law, you're
saying people can, if God saves you, you can just live as you
like. And other such charges are made, and the rest. I've
heard of this chapel, for example, which is not true at all of us.
People say, oh that chapel, that teaching is unloving, it's harsh. But I don't find that amongst
us. I think God has been very good to us as a chapel. We find
them sure amongst each other. The love and concern and care
one for other. The prayers for each other. We
love coming to this chapel. We love to hear these truths.
These don't turn us into harsh and loving people. By the grace
of God I trust that these doctrines soften us. Make us people who
want to serve God. But what people are saying is
God is unfair. God is unjust. Why should he
save some and not others? And our answer is, it's of God. Who can challenge the will of
God? We don't understand. I think we have to be honest
and say there are things we don't know and we don't understand.
God is sovereign. He does what he does according
to his will. If we don't have a good vision
of, I've talked here before on the doctrine of God and nature
of God, if we don't understand that God is righteous altogether,
then we can't fully comprehend this stuff. Everything he does
is totally. righteous even in the matter
of salvation. Who can understand that God has
a people for himself and these people are much blessed and very
highly thought of. You see that in 1 Peter chapter
2 and we see there some lovely verses. We could pick a number
of verses out of chapter 2 but let's look at verse 9. Ye are a chosen generation a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye, that's
a particular people, that ye should show forth the praises
of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous
light. This is what God does. Look at the titles that are ascribed
to those who are saved, to those who are the people of God. Isn't
it wonderful? They're chosen, elected, of God. And a royal priesthood, priests
and kings unto God, that's how God thinks of us, a holy nation.
A peculiar people have chosen a particular set aside people
to show for his praises, because we were called out of darkness. That's the nature of sin, it's
darkness into his marvellous light. If you be in Christ, then
you're into that marvellous light. He came, he said, I am the light
of the world. in your souls, which in the past were not a
people, but are now the people of God, which have not obtained
mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Have we obtained mercy? People think that it's all to do with emotional appeals
and decision making. Some of us were brought up in
churches where it was all about us and making the decision. When we made the decision, and
filled up a car, then God could save us. But you see that's not
the suffering of God. You mean God can't save me until
I say a prayer and fill up a car? Well he's not God is he? But
God saves us because he loves us. And that's a wonderful thing.
Yes, we do need to come and we do need to repent as God works
in our souls. We do feel that need to repent. We do need to express our sorrow
because we begin to feel. Until God dealt with us we felt
no sorrow for sin. We didn't even know we were sinners
until the sovereign grace of God came. Now, we see that in
this great chapter. verse 18, all things are of God
who have reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ. That's at the
heart of the gospel. What did we do? Nothing. But
he is the complete opposite to all religion. It's back to front
they would say. But this God has reconciled us
to himself. It's not us reconciling and making
ourselves good to God. It's God reconciling us to ourselves. It's the opposite to what you'll
be taught nearly everywhere. This is the truth by Jesus Christ. People want Christianity but
they don't want Christ in all his glory. They want it to be
a sort of we live a good life and we do good works and we're
concerned about famine and and distress and these are good things
we need Christ and then other things can follow he says in
the previous verse if any man be in Christ he is a new creature
you have to say there is an old creature there is a man of sin
there is the one who was living in such a way was not pleasing
to God one who did not know the favour of God What does it mean
to be a new creature? This is what it means, says Paul.
All things are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. Do we know that? Have we understood that? We had
things that we held on to that were important to us and were
part of our lives and now they go. We don't want them. We're
not interested. What we want now is the things
that God shows us. All things become new. Suddenly
our eyes are open. and we want to know spiritual
things, all by the grace of God. He has done this. God was in
Christ. It's a double emphasis, coming
back to it. If you didn't understand that
first verse, listen to this. God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself. How has he done that? Our pastors
preached much on this recently. Not imputing their trespasses
unto them. And we've all got more than enough
trespasses. Just one thing. In one thing
we fail the law. That God does not impute their
trespasses unto them. No. What's happened to all those
trespasses? This is another area of great
contention. What is this ministry of reconciliation? Christ has made sin for us. People find that a very hard
truth to go to. It's made possible by the grace
of God. Christ made sin for us is what
we call that imputed righteousness. We don't have any of our own.
He took it all upon himself. If you read your latest gospel
standards, you'll see someone's written a letter towards the
end there, Mr Aswell's written a nice reply, all about righteousness
and what it is all about. Don't we need Christ's robe of
righteousness to cover us? And perhaps someone who has been
to his chapel and preached, he doesn't know the sculpture. So
Mr Aswell was very kindly trying to set it out. the doctrinal
imputed righteousness. We have no righteousness. He
is our righteousness, wisdom, sanctification, so on, and redemption. It's all in Christ. It's imputed. He has made that peace. It's
He who has reconciled us. We don't make that peace. People
feel, again, back to do, people will feel we've got to do something.
How can I make peace with God? Well, you can't. God has done
it. And if I've got the right verse, Hebrews chapter 7 verses
26 and 27 we read of this high priest for such a high priest
became us who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners
and made higher than heaven who need if not daily as those high
priests to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins and then
for his people's for this he did once when he offered himself
this is what we stand in Christ offered himself once, as I said
in the prayer. The amazing thing is that he
was our prophet, our priest and our king. And he offered himself
once. This is why the Mass, amongst
other things, is such an abomination. Week by week they are holding
up this wafer. But Christ offered himself once.
What a lie. Everything in Rome takes away
from Christ and we won't have it. We want everything to point
to Him. He has made peace by the cross
and we thank God for what he's done there. Now there is a parallel
to this. I want to bring in a parallel
to hopefully emphasise this truth in God's dealing. And it's the
idea of covenant. And our pastor ministers discussed
thoroughly on the whole concept and we need to know that of the
covenant, the new covenant, because that's a very clear central truth
in the scriptures. but we have a new testament or
a new covenant and it is set forth particularly in the epistle
to Hebrews and again we need to be quite clear on what this
is teaching because it is not teaching that which people normally
think is taught of religion they want it to be otherwise Hebrews
chapter 9 verse 25 onwards nor yet that he should offer
himself often as the high priest entereth into the holy place
every year with blood of others, for then he must have suffered
since the foundation of the world, but now, once in the end of the
world, he hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself, and is appointed unto men once to die, and after this
the judgment. So Christ was offered once offered
to bear the sins of many unto them that look for him shall
he appear the second time without sin unto salvation and we know
that in Hebrews 4 goes back and he re-emphasizes this great truth
we have that there is no more balls and goats, no more repetition
of things. We have in that same chapter
a new covenant, verse 15, for this cause he is the mediator
of the new testament or new covenant that by means of death, by the
redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament
they which are called might receive the promise of eternal life.
The first testament, the law, declared to us sin, judgment,
and death, and unrighteousness. And now we read there is a new
testament, a new covenant, in which there is redemption. And
this is key, verse 16, for where a testament is there must also
of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament
is in force after men are dead, otherwise it is of no strength
at all while the testator liveth. And this is a key truth, a parallel. Now very recently sadly we lost
a family member and as executor I had to put into place and fulfil
the terms of the will. Before my father-in-law died,
he had a will, and it was powerless. It meant nothing. He still had
his property and all the rest of it, the things that he wanted
to do. It came into power on his death. And then when he died,
it became, as it were, all-powerful. We had to make sure that we fulfilled
the very clear things that were set out in his will and nothing
else. And so it is, in the death of
our Lord Jesus Christ, in that new covenant, He is the testator.
He has a will. And where God tells us that we
are heirs and joint heirs with the Son. Isn't that wonderful? And that we have this great hope
of salvation. And it's all sealed in the death
of Christ. The power of it, remarkably,
the power of it is in his death. His death was that acceptable
offering for sin, where he took our sins upon him. And that death
was so powerful, it released to us salvation, it released
to us all the goodness and blessings of the Gospel, and it released
to us as it were in a will. eternal life, salvation, to be
with God forever. Again, are these truths, are
they generally taught? No, they're not taught. But they
need to be. We need to understand. We need
to understand the way they are expressed to us. I'm trying to
express them in the way that's in the Word of God. I'm not trying
to complicate it. And we read in Romans 8 verse
14, For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the
sons of God. For you have not received the
Spirit of bondage again to fear that ye have received the spirit
of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father the spirit itself witnesses
with our spirit that we are the children of God and if children
then heirs heirs of God and join heirs with Christ if so be that
we suffer with him that we may be also glorified together, for
I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed
in us." Isn't that wonderful? We are heirs, joint heirs, but
only, as it were, we inherit because of that wonderful faithful
work of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's why there are no more
bulls and goats and offerings, that's why the masses, apart
from anything else that is alive, there is no Hebrews says there
is no more offering. He has offered once. The price
has been fully paid, as we say, in the head. And we thank God
for that. We have this imputed robe of
righteousness as it were. Christ's righteousness has been
overturned. Some people might find that very
difficult. They've never heard it before. Some people might
find that offensive. How can that be? That's what
God says. He sees us, but He sees us as
righteous in Christ and through Christ. It is only by being in
Him that we can know salvation. There is no name under heaven
whereby we must be saved but in the Lord Jesus Christ. That
is our doctrine. So there are no works for salvation. We must be absolutely clear on
it. There's nothing we can do. People want to do it and in a
sense we might still have that clinging to us. I must do this,
I must do that. Well there are things that we
ought to do because we're motivated by love, but they won't save
us. Only Christ can save us and therefore
we have everything in Him. We look to Him, we trust, we
love Him above all things. And again in Ephesians chapter
2, there's that lovely chapter, we think about works and people
say to you, oh well, you know, you're antinomian, you've got
nothing to say about works, you just think that you're saved
and you just go home and everything's alright and you don't worry about
anybody else, that's not the case is it? It's not of works,
lest any man should boast salvation. In Ephesians 2 verse 10, we are
his workmanship. That's the point, that God saves
us for a purpose. It's not, well, some people have
this view that you're saved, that's it, you're in the kingdom
and that's all that really happens in your Christian life, you're
now saved. But no, we are his workmanship. God wants to continue
working in us and he wants us to have a life that's different
and to be an active life and a godly life we are his workmanship
created in Christ unto good works not just to sit in the pew we
are created in Christ unto good works which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them so let me just again go back on
this there are no works for salvation but let me say there are very
definitely are works of salvation if you're saved you should show
It should be manifest in the way you live, the person you
are. People should see something different. If they see you're
a Christian, you live like everybody else, they would think you've
got nothing. I can remember being accused many years ago of going
through these trips and being told, oh you're preaching a works
religion. I hope you don't think I'm doing
that small thing. I very much believe I'm not.
The works can't save you. But there are works. And there's
believers. Members of the Church, we should
be looking to serve the Lord. We should be thinking of how
it is that we can love him and serve him and do what we can
for the Church of Christ. We see in our passage, verse
19, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto him, not imputing
their trespasses unto them. No, he's imputing righteousness
unto them. and have committed unto us the
word of reconciliation." Then says Paul, we know this famous
verse, we are ambassadors for Christ. But you see, you only
get to that verse by understanding where Paul has been before. He's
an ambassador for Christ. He wants to make these things
known. He wants to bring what he would call a ministry of reconciliation
to people. Isn't that what the Gospel is?
Isn't it? A ministry of reconciliation.
We reconcile the sinner to God. for he has made him to be sin
for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him these are wonderful words we haven't time to go through
all of them but this is it and this is also to be put alongside
the other great doctrine that's not understood and is spoken
ill of in our day the substitutionary atonement that Christ died for
our sins but some people just stop there They say, OK, I'll
go with that. They won't, they don't go. The
next step, which is part of that, these go together, the imputed
righteousness. You've got to have those two
truths together to see the picture of the Gospel. We are His workmanship. Now, how does that come to us? We could say, well if God does
it all, God does it all, what have I got to do? How do I know
God's working in me? How do I know how to respond?
How do I know I'm saved? And many other questions we could
be asked. Let me tell you, when God comes and works in your heart,
you know it. Because he works a change. We
believe in what we call irresistible grace. It may take time in your
heart, when God comes, you will know. Because things start becoming
different. You look at things differently.
And you know this, that you suddenly know you are a sinner. You become
concerned about your soul. You become concerned about the
person you are, the things you do, the things you've done. You
remember things. I still do. Remember things I've
done. And it hurts me. Did I do that? I did. Alas. He melts our heart, the Spirit
comes and we are brought to that point where we only absorb. We repent of our sins, we look
to the cross. I can remember as a 17 year old
at school being brought on my knees and I could see that cross. I knew about the cross, I had
been to church many times and it was for me. And it meant something. The heart was in it. Because
God brought us to that. This isn't to be cold, hard. People say, oh you people, you're
Calvinists, you're cold, hard doctrine. This isn't cold, hard
doctrine. This is that which touches the
heart. This is what God has set forth in his word to get to your
heart. This is that two-edged sword that pierces to the joint
and marrow. Or it's nothing. God was in Christ,
reconciling the world as himself. We are reconciled. God has reconciled
us. He has done it all. How much
we should love him in Christ. God will grant all of us to know,
to seek him, to find him. He says, be reconciled. And you
could say, well, how can we be reconciled to God? How is it
that a man can be reconciled to God? Verse 20, isn't it? He says, He prayeth you in God's
name, be ye reconciled. And people would say, well, that's
the complete opposite to what you've said before. No, it's
not. It's to go forward as God leads you, and to look to God,
and to enter in by His grace, into that reconciliation. that
he has done for us in the Lord Jesus Christ, and all things
of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and
hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation, to which that
God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the work
of reconciliation. Amen. We can see our closing
head, which is number 227.