The Bible Baptist Church, located
at 2015 Beulah Road in Madisonville, Kentucky, would like to invite
you to listen to a message of the sovereign grace of God in
the Lord Jesus Christ by their pastor, David Edmondson. In Galatians chapter 2, verse
20, the Apostle Paul wrote this, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless
I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which
I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me. Salvation comes not by
our love for God or by our faithfulness, not by giving ourselves to Him. Salvation is found in Christ,
who loves chosen, believing sinners and the giving of Himself to
them. Salvation is all about Christ's
faithfulness to the chosen sinner. And Paul digs deep here to the
foundation of salvation. Salvation has to do with His
love for us, not our love for Him. John wrote in 1 John 4.10,
not that we loved God, but that He loved us. In verse 19 of the
same chapter, he wrote, herein is love, not that we love God,
but that he loved us and sent, gave his son to be the propitiation
for our sins. What an amazing revelation to
every believer. Jesus Christ loves them and gave
himself for them. What a special, distinguishing,
particular love that Christ has for His people. And this is so,
so important. Christ didn't die for me because
I believe. I believe because He died for
me. Believing and trusting in the
Lord Jesus Christ is the result of what He purposed for me before
the world was ever framed. He loved me and gave Himself
for me. Therefore, I believe and trust
in Him. And this is the solid ground upon which the believer
rests. Let's talk a little about Christ's
love for His people. First, it's a divine love. This is the love of God in heaven,
the divine one, the everlasting father and forever blessed son,
along with the sacred and holy spirit. The great trinity in
unity loves me, the wretch and sinner that I am. I can't wrap
my head around that. Can you? Delight yourself, child
of God, in this glorious truth. Jesus Christ loved you and gave
himself for you. God gave himself for us. Secondly,
this love is an ancient love and an everlasting love. If the
Lord ever loved me, he loves me still. It's an everlasting
love, a love that always was and always will be. Who loved
me, it says. The verb there, loved, is in
the past tense. There was never a time when Christ
did not love me. And He loves me now. He loved
me on the cross. He loved me in the manger of
Bethlehem. But listen to this. He loved
me before the foundation of the world. He's always loved me. Thirdly, it's an immeasurable
love. If you measure a love by its
gifts, then you can certainly have an immeasurable love here,
for it was provided by an immeasurable gift. He who cannot be comprehended,
he who is boundless, inconceivable, indescribable, gave himself for
me. There's a limit to what a man
can give, but there's no limit to the love of God in Christ.
And because of this union, this union that every believer has
with the Lord Jesus Christ, there's no limit of Christ's love for
them. You can never measure the heights,
the depths, the lengths, the breadths of Christ's love. There's
nothing that can separate us from the love of God in Christ
Jesus, our Lord. Romans 8, 39. What an immeasurable
love. Fourthly, this is an abiding
love. He cannot love me more, and he
cannot love me less. He who is unchanging has an unchanging
love. His love for his people is a
treasure that will never be lost. It's a blessing that can never
be exhausted. We don't hope that he loves us. He loves us. Even though Paul
speaks as a matter of fact, he also speaks with a sense of astonishment. He loved me? He gave himself
for me? My, my, the thought that God
Almighty could love a wretch like me. What amazing grace. Let's move on and consider verse
21. Paul wrote, I do not frustrate
the grace of God For if righteousness, the righteousness that God requires,
perfect righteousness, if righteousness come by the law, then Christ
is dead in vain. Now anyone who hopes to be saved
by his or her own righteousness or work of the law rejects the
favor of God found in the Lord Jesus Christ. When a man sees
and feels that the law condemns him, they will not cry for justice,
but for mercy. They do not want what they deserve
because they deserve the wages of sin, which is death. They'll
cry for what they don't deserve, and that's the grace of God in
Christ. No one has ever recommended one
that is innocent to mercy. Mercy and grace are desired by
the guilty. We who were dead in trespasses
and sin can't make ourselves acceptable before God. You and
I can't perform a work of righteousness that God will accept, because
God only accepts perfection, and neither could Peter or any
other Jew who kept the law. Paul wrote to Titus 3, 5, and
6, salvation is not not by works of righteousness
that we've done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the
washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed. He shed on us abundantly through
Christ Jesus our Lord. Those who think that they can
be saved by doing something, a work of what they call righteousness,
are ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish
their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto
the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth." Romans 10, 3
and 4. Now hear me, if a man, a sinner, is justified, sanctified,
and redeemed by a work of righteousness that he himself does, Paul says,
then Christ is dead and vain. In other words, Christ died for
no reason. If you're saved by your works,
if you're justified in the sight of a holy God by what you do,
then Christ died in vain. If you, by your morality, your
good deeds, your charity, your church membership, your preaching,
teaching, tithing, and attendance, if that's the way you're justified,
then Jesus Christ died in vain. If Christ died to bring in a
righteousness that can be secured by my works or by your works,
Christ died in vain. And if Christ died on the cross
to redeem a people who might have otherwise been redeemed
by their own goodness, He died in vain. And there was no reason
for him to come to earth. And there was no reason for him
to become a man. And there was no reason for him
to be tried and tempted. And there was no reason for him
to suffer. There was no reason for the wrath
of God to fall on him. There was no reason for him to
shed his blood. Someone was once asked, how long
Have you been a Christian, a believer?" And the response was, all my
life. And the one who asked the question
said, well, that's just a little too long to be true. The great
preacher Mr. Spurgeon once said that to teach
that sinners can add anything to the glorious work that Christ
did is criminal. is a crime that insinuates God
to be a fool, it would mean that God condemned His own Son in
vain. Those who preach salvation by
works are committing a crime against their hearers because
they're giving their hearers a false hope and a false refuge. Jesus Christ is the ark of God. All that go into Him will be
saved from God's wrath, just as in the days of Noah. Refuge
is in Him alone. What if Noah had preached that
deliverance from God's wrath from the flood could come by
climbing to the highest mountain in order to be saved? How criminal
would it have been since the highest mountains themselves
were covered by the flood? The blood of millions would have
been upon Noah's hands. And some today say to preach
a salvation by works, well, that will encourage people to live
moral lives. It will encourage them to be
virtuous and honest. but it also may cause them to
trust in their own morality, virtue, and righteousness instead
of the perfect work, morality, virtue, and righteousness that
Christ provides for his people. Religion today seems to believe
that if you preach salvation is a gift of God and salvation
is by grace alone, not what you do for God, but what God does
for you, that you'll cause folks to be careless and sin. Why do
men and women think that the free gift of salvation gives
sinners a license to sin? It does no such thing. A sinner
who God has saved by grace will be thankful and obedient to the
one who loved them and gave himself for them. And that's what this
message is about. Everything else appeals to the
flesh. People are more motivated by
reward than by love, but not the true believer. Paul said,
the love of Christ constraineth us. If I do everything that God
commands me to do, I'm still an unprofitable servant. Our
Lord said that. We preach Christ because we love
Him. We give because we love Christ
and want the gospel furthered. We worship Christ because we
love Him. We attend His gospel and the
worship of His Son because we love Him. We tell others about
Christ because we love them and because we love the ones we tell.
but He loved us first and gave Himself for us. Dear sinner,
Christ did not die in vain. So then, salvation cannot be
by a work of righteousness that we do. Salvation is by the finished
and perfect work and righteousness that Christ did. A child of God
refuses to frustrate, to reject, to despise, to make void the
grace of God in Christ. For they know that righteousness
does not come by the law, but by grace. And nothing or no one
can frustrate the grace of God. Webster's defines frustrate as
preventing the progress or success or fulfillment of something.
Well, the success and fulfillment of the grace of God cannot be
prevented. It will always be successful
and fulfilled in those whom the Lord purposed it. And this is
the gospel. Christ loved certain distinguishing
and chosen sinners. He loved them and he gave himself
for them. That is the gospel. And no child
of God is ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it's the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. If God chose
me, ordained me to believe before I was ever born, before I'd ever
done anything good or anything bad, then salvation cannot be
by works of righteousness that I have done, but by the grace
of God. You have been listening to a
message by David Edmondson. the pastor of Bible Baptist Church
in Madisonville, Kentucky. If you would like a copy of this
message or to hear other messages of God's free, sovereign grace
in Christ, you can write to our mailing address at P.O. Box 652,
Madisonville, Kentucky, 42431. or log on to our website at FreeGraceRadio.com. If you would like to come and
worship with us, we meet at 2015 Beulah Road, Madisonville, Kentucky,
and our service times are Sunday morning Bible study at 10 o'clock
a.m., worship services begin at 11 o'clock a.m., Wednesday
evening services at 7 o'clock p.m., Please tune in again next
Sunday morning at 10 o'clock AM for another message of God's
free and sovereign grace in the Lord Jesus Christ.