If you would turn with me to
the epistle of Galatians chapter 2, please. Galatians chapter
2. I want to look at the last three
verses of the chapter, beginning in verse 19. Galatians 2, verse 19. Paul here writes, beginning in
verse 19, For I, through the law," now speaking of the law
of Christ, believing in Him, trusting Him, finding all our
righteousness and acceptance in, by, and through Him. He said,
I am dead to the law, the law that says do this and do that. and you shall live. He said that
I might live unto God, that I should live in the will of God for His
honor and for His glory. You know, as believers in Christ,
we are not under the law, but we're under grace. Aren't you
glad? I don't want what I deserve. I want what I don't deserve.
I don't want what the law says that I should have, being a guilty
sinner, I want what grace gives pardoned sinners. And this is
how, verse 20, I am crucified with Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ
bore my sins in His own body on the tree, making an end of
them. We have such a problem with that,
but there could be no greater truth that in Christ my sin has
been put away. I stand as perfectly righteous
as Christ Himself. Christ bore my sins. They no
longer have any condemning power over me. For I died with my substitute
and my sacrifice. Paul goes on to say, nevertheless
I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. The child of God
lives spiritually and eternally as a new man, a new creation,
a new creature. We looked at that a couple weeks
ago, 2 Corinthians 5, 17. And we look to Christ alone for
pardon, for righteousness, for peace, comfort, and grace. And Paul says, in the life which
I now live in the flesh, in this body, in this life, I live by
the faith of the Son of God. That faith of which He's the
author and He's the object. The faith of a just man, the
God-man. Our redemption is due to His
faithfulness to us, not our faithfulness to Him. And then the last phrase
in verse 20 says, Who loved me and gave Himself for me. Oh, I could just live right there. He loved me and He gave Himself
for me. Salvation comes not by our love
for God or by our faithfulness, not by our giving ourselves to
Him, It's found in Christ who loves chosen, believing sinners
and the giving of Himself to them. His faithfulness to us. He is faithful that promised.
That's what makes salvation sure. That's what makes salvation certain. Preacher, you believe in one
saved, always saved? If Christ saved me, it's certain
and sure. Paul digs deep here into the
foundation of salvation. Salvation has to do with His
love for us, not our love for Him. Not that we loved God, but
that He loved us, John wrote. Here in His love, not that we
loved 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. They are separated
to be the Lord's peculiar people, therefore they find all their
hope, all their comfort and assurance. I love those three words. Hope,
comfort, and assurance. I need them. I need all three
of those things so desperately. And they're in the blessed fact
that Christ loved me and gave Himself for me. Paul knew this,
and so can we. Christ died for sinners, and
they are the ones who trust Him. I trust and believe because He
died for me. You know, that's so important.
We often times get that reversed. We get the cart before the horse.
Christ didn't die for me because I believe. I believe because
He died for me. Big difference. He had to give
me life first before I could ever believe. Believing and trusting
in the Lord Jesus Christ is the result of what He purposed for
me before the worlds were ever framed. He loved me and gave
Himself for me. Oh, chew on that, dear sinner.
It will bring you great comfort, hope, and assurance. Therefore,
I believe and trust in Him." This is solid ground to rest
upon. And this is why we rejoice in
Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. We used to tease when we were
younger and say, well, I wouldn't trust Him any further than I
could pick Him up and throw Him. And He'd weigh about 400 pounds.
It was not very far. But we can rejoice in Christ
Jesus having no confidence in the flesh because Christ did
it all for us. Our confidence is found in His
love for us. Our hope is found in Him giving
Himself for us. He loved His people and He gave
Himself for them. That's the most amazing and beautiful
thing I ever heard. We come to Him because He came
to us. Just as we love Him because He
first loved us. We know that we're drawn by grace
divine. How do we know? Because with
loving kindness, He has drawn us to Himself. He loved us and
gave Himself for us. Let's talk just a little about
this love Christ has for His people. And the first point is
just that. It's a divine love. You know,
if someone famous or notable loved me, it would be a delightful
thing that I would love to tell others. Did you know that so-and-so
loves me? They told me they did. It would
be a wondrous thing if a king or a lord knew me and loved me
and actually died for me. But our text reminds us that
it's the Son of God, and it's God the Son, the King of kings,
and the Lord of lords, who chose certain sinners, given to Him
by God the Father, to love them. And that didn't only mean that
He thinks upon me, that He feeds me and provides for me, He actually
loves me. That's a word that's pretty flippantly
used today. Oh, I love this, I love that.
A young boy and girl meets one another and they hadn't known
each other 15 years. I love you, I love you too. But He actually loves us. He
who is love, loves us. 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. I can't wrap my head around that,
can you? Delight yourself in that glorious
truth. Child of God, Jesus Christ loved
you and gave Himself for you. God gave Himself for us. Secondly,
this love is an ancient love. It's an everlasting love. If
He ever loved me, He loves me still. It's an everlasting love. A love
that always was and will always be. Who loved me? Christ loved me. Notice the verb there, who loved
me. It's in the past tense. There was never a time that Christ
did not love me. He loves me now. He loved me
on the cross. He loved me in the manger of
Bethlehem. He loved me before the foundation
of the world. He's always loved me. Do you understand that? No? Like
most of the things in the Bible, I don't understand. But we were
talking earlier when the men met, and Gene read a beautiful
passage of Scripture, Romans 7 and 8. And just the thought that he
loved me and gave himself for me. What an amazing news. Good news, isn't it? It's Gospel
news. In His love, Christ could not
give any more of Himself. He not only gave His crown, His
throne, His life, His sufferings, His death, His blood, all of
His excellencies, all of His merits, He gave Himself. His whole self, His soul and
His body. He gave all of Himself to all
of His people that as if each of us was the only one that He
gave Himself for. Christ gave His life a ransom
for many, not for the whole world, but for the whole church of God.
But His fullness, the fullness of the Godhead bodily was enough
to save all His people as if they individually were the only
ones He saved. It's just like His inheritance.
We've talked about that before. If someone dies and leaves an
inheritance and they have five children, they split the The
pie five different ways, but with Christ, you get the whole
pie. You get the whole thing. Each
of us do. That's unfathomable. I don't
understand that. I don't need a God I can understand.
I need God. Thirdly, this is an immeasurable
love. How much do you love me? Oh,
I love you a whole bunch. I love you this much. His love
is immeasurable. I've heard people say, and seen
illustrations of, how much do Christ love me? And then they
show him on the cross, he loves me this much. No, he loves you
much more than that. Much more than that. It's immeasurable. You can't measure it. And if you measure a love by
its gifts, then you certainly have an immeasurable love here,
for it was proved by an immeasurable gift. He gave Himself. He who cannot be comprehended,
He who is boundless, inconceivable, indescribable, gave Himself for
me. If you know something about yourself,
you will sigh on that. You'll sigh with joy. The Gospel will make you sigh
with joy, won't it? It's not like, oh me, it's like,
wow! There's a limit to what man can
give, but there's no limit to the love of God in Christ. I
put a short little article statement in the bulletin this week that
Todd Nyberg made and it says, Christ in me and me in Christ.
Throw a thimble in the ocean, the thimble's in the ocean and
the ocean is in the thimble. Because of this union that every
believer has with Christ, there is no limit of Christ's love
for them. And you cannot measure the height,
the depths, the lengths, and the breadth of Christ's love.
There's nothing, nothing, no one that can separate us from
the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8.39. If you ever doubt God's love,
pick up your Bible and read that verse. Read those verses there
in Romans 8. Fourthly, this love is an abiding
love. Our love is fickle. We love those
that love us. If someone doesn't treat us right,
we don't love them anymore. But His love is abiding. He cannot
love me more and He cannot love me less. He who is unchanging has an unchangeable
love. His love for His people is a
treasure that will never be lost. Everybody's always hunting for
treasure. Who is it that's losing all this treasure? My treasure
in Christ cannot be lost. It's an abiding treasure. Oh, it's a blessing that can
never be exhausted. And let's speak a moment here
on the faith that Paul here confesses in our text. Paul said, I live
by the faith of the Son of God. He didn't say, I live by my faith
in the Son of God. He said, I live by the faith
of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. This
faith is in a person. A lot of folks' faith is in their
faith. Our faith is in a person. The Lord Jesus Christ. It's faith
in the living and loving Lord. Have I told you who gave Himself
for us? Who gave Himself for us? The
child of God's in the hands of the One who can keep them. That's
why He's everything to me. He's the only One that can save
me. He's the only One that can keep me. Prone to wonder, Lord,
I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.
But it don't matter how prone I am, if none can pluck me from
His hand, He quickens my dead self. He
clothes me who is naked. He washes me who is filthy. I spoke with John Chapman earlier
this week. He sent out his bulletin the
same day I was working on ours. And this little article was in
the bulletin too. And I mention it only because
I had the same thing happen to me. When I first had a religious
experience, One said something to me, and I said, well, thank
God the Lord saved sinners. And I said, well, I used to be
a sinner, but I'm not a sinner anymore. And what was I wrong about that? He showed me that He saved sinners. He saved a sinner like me, and
that's all I've been ever since, is a sinner. Saved by the grace
of God. Why? Because He loved me and
gave Himself for me. We don't hope that He loves us.
He loves us. Even though Paul speaks as a
matter of fact, he also speaks here with a sense of astonishment. He loved me? He gave Himself for me? So let's move on here and consider
verse 21. My, my. We're in deep, deep waters. Verse 21, I do not frustrate
the grace of God. For if righteousness come by
the law, then Christ is dead in vain. Brother Mahan said in
his commentary on this verse, there's no stronger statement
found anywhere in God's Word on salvation by grace. If righteousness
And that's talking about the perfect righteousness, the only
righteousness that God will accept. You know, our righteousness has
to be perfect to be accepted. It has to be perfect to be accepted.
The Word of God is very clear on that. If this perfect righteousness
come by the law, doing and keeping the law, being good boys and
girls, then Christ died in vain. The word grace is found 170 times
in the Scriptures. And I found this very interesting.
The first time that grace is used in the Bible is in Genesis
chapter 6 and verse 8. But Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. The Lord was fed up with the
sin and wickedness of man. And He said, I will destroy man
whom I have created from the face of the earth. But Noah found
grace. in the eyes of the Lord. And
then the last time that the word grace is used in the Scriptures
is in the very last verse of the Bible, Revelation 22, verse
21, and it says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
you all. So, the grace that Noah found
in the eyes of the Lord is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. As Gene said in his prayer, there
is no other grace but divine, sovereign grace. No one else
has the grace in order to give it. It's His. There's no grace
to sinners apart from Jesus Christ. Would you agree with that? The
grace that Noah found was in Christ. That was the first thing
that God showed Noah. He showed him that Christ was
his salvation, that Christ was his refuge. He showed Noah Jesus
Christ is the ark that God built. Year after year as Noah placed
that gopher wood where God told him to, he saw more and more
of Christ. Just as the ark was purposed
by God, so was Christ, the sinner's refuge, purposed by God. Purpose before there was ever
a sinner. Before there was a sinner, there was a Savior. Noah saw
Christ in the pitch of the ark. Noah saw Christ in the one door
and the one window that the ark had. When the flood came, Noah
saw that his salvation and the salvation of his family was provided
for by God. Have you seen that? Has God shown
you that? Well, He's got to show it to
you before you can see it. You didn't find grace, grace
found you. He's the only salvation Christ
is that provides for sinners. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save who? Sinners. If you're a sinner,
that's good news. Just as Noah saw the ark was
a place of safety, the believer sees Jesus Christ as their only
place of safety. Noah and his family were sheltered
against the storm of God's wrath. Those who are in Christ are protected
from that same wrath, and those outside of Christ will perish,
just like they did in Noah's day. And I've said this often,
and I'm going to say it again. Do you think on the back of the
ark, as the floods came and filled this earth up there, if there
was a bumper sticker that said, Smile, God Loves You? Just as the eight souls and all
their animals must come into the ark for safety, so must the
sinner come to Christ to be saved. Just as the time to come into
the ark was a limited time, so is God's call to come to Christ.
His Spirit shall not always strive with man. One of these days,
God's going to wrap this thing up. It won't be until the last
chosen sinner is saved, because everyone that He foreknew and
predestined and called is going to be justified. Just as the coming of the flood
was unexpected by the world in the days of Noah, so is the second
coming of the Lord Jesus. Right now, it's business as usual.
Everybody eat and drink and be merry. That's what the world
says. If it feels good, just do it. But the time is coming
when the Lord's going to wrap this all up. And it's the grace
of God in Jesus Christ and it cannot be found anywhere else. There is no love, no mercy, no
grace, no forgiveness apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. Have you ever thought about the
significance of that statement, in the eyes of the Lord? and
the eyes of the Lord indicates the bestowing of His favor. For
the eyes of the Lord are over all the righteous, and His ears
are open to their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against
them that do evil. The concerned and compassionate
eyes of the Lord were upon Noah in grace." God had purpose to
save him. God had purpose to deliver him.
The gracious eyes of the Lord are on His people to deliver
them from their sin, to protect them, and preserve and keep them
by His grace. Eleven times in the book of Genesis
alone, the word grace is mentioned, and it's always connected with
being in the sight of the Lord, every single time. God's people find grace where? In the eyes of the Lord. In His
sight. So we must find grace in God's
sight as Noah did. We must find the grace that only
God can bestow. We must see that grace that's
found in Christ alone. How do we come to find this grace
in God's sight? We don't. It finds us. It always finds us. It always
finds His people. Noah found grace because grace
found him. If the Lord is the only one who
possesses grace, then the Lord is the only one that can give
it. Ephesians 1 verse 6, To the praise of the glory of His grace,
wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved, and that Beloved
is Christ Jesus. Ephesians 1.7, in whom, the beloved
Christ Jesus, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness
of sins, according to the riches of His grace. Ephesians 2.5,
even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with
Christ, by grace are you saved, and hath raised us up together
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that
in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of
His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved through
faith. And that's not of yourselves.
It's a gift of God. It's called the gift of God because
grace is given by the effectual working of God's power. And He's the only one that can
give it. And He gives it freely. You can't purchase it. You don't earn it. You can't
merit it. It's a gift. Paul says in verse 21, if salvation,
which is having perfect righteousness, comes by the work of the law,
your Savior, Jesus Christ, died in vain. That's strong. That's strong language. You know,
that was Paul's issue with Peter. Look up at verse 11 in Galatians 2. But when Peter was
come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face because he was
to be blamed. For before that certain came
from James, he did, Peter, he did eat with the Gentiles. But
when they, speaking of the Jews, were come, he withdrew and separated
himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision." What are
they going to think? I'm sitting here eating this
food with these people. And the other Jews dissembled
likewise with him, in so much that Barnabas also was carried
away with their dissimulation. That word means pretenses. Their
pretentiousness. That's all it is. And Peter,
by his actions, was saying that in order to be justified, you
still had to keep the law. that you couldn't eat certain
things and you certainly didn't eat with the Gentiles. Remember
what the Pharisees said about the Lord? Well, He eats with
publicans and sinners. He must be a sinner. And obviously, Peter still believed
that you had to be circumcised like the Jews were and that you
had to observe the Jewish law of works. Look at verse 14. But when I saw, Paul says, that
they walked not uprightly according to what? The truth of the Gospel. I said unto Peter before them
all, if thou being a Jew livest after the manner of Gentiles,
and not as do the Jews, why compelst thou the Gentiles to live as
do the Jews? In other words, how could Peter
expect the Gentiles to live under the Jewish law that was never
given to them by God? They didn't know the law of God. Well, the Jews knew it backwards
and forwards. But the Gentiles didn't. And
he says in verse 15, we who are Jews by nature, in other words,
born Jews, and not sinners of the Gentiles, born of a wicked
nation of the world, under no restraint, living all manner
of wickedness, that's what they thought of the Gentiles, whom
the Jews thought were unfit and filled with evil. But now they
were under the same grace and free from the law of the Spirit
of life and Christ Jesus, which had also made the Gentiles free
from the law of sin and death. And this is where the rubber
meets the road in all this, friends. Verse 16, knowing that a man
is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith
of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus
Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not
by the works of the law. For by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. You want to put that in just
good old Kentucky language? You can't be saved by doing.
You can't. You can only be saved by what
Christ did for you. What Paul was saying to Peter
is what we see in verse 21. Peter, I don't frustrate. I don't despise. I don't make
void. I don't reject or refuse the
grace of God. Oh my, neither do I. I love it. It's my only hope. Anyone who hopes to be saved
by his or her own righteous Righteousness or work of the law rejects the
free favor of God found in the Lord Jesus Christ. And when a
man sees and feels that the law condemns him, I can assure you
of this, they won't cry out for justice. They'll cry out for
mercy. Mercy beggars. Jesus, thou Son
of David, have mercy on me. Hush up, you old blind beggar.
Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me. Shut up. He cried
all the more. Jesus, Thou Son of David, have
mercy on me. You know what he got? Mercy.
He got mercy. The Lord said, what can I do
for you? He thought that I might receive my sight. Have you received your sight?
It only comes by grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. No one has ever recommended one
that is innocent to mercy. Mercy and grace are desired only
by the guilty. We who are dead in trespasses
and sin can't make ourselves acceptable before God. I don't
care how hard you try. You can't do it. No man can come
to Christ that he might have life. He doesn't have the ability.
You will not come to me that you might have life. You won't
come. You don't have the ability to
come. You don't have the will to come. You are 100% dependent
upon grace finding you. Titus 3, 5, and 6. Salvation
is not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to His mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing
of the Holy Ghost which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus
Christ our Lord. He not only sheds it upon us,
Sharon, He does so abundantly. Is there mercy Still enough reserved
for me? Oh yes, plenty is mercy. Those who think they can be saved
by their own work of 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
who believes. This is the Word of God. This
is what God says. I'm not interested in what a
man says. I'm interested in what God says. Preachers are reporters. That's
all. We just report the Good News.
If a man, a sinner, is justified, sanctified, and redeemed by a
work of righteousness that he himself does, listen to me, then
Christ died in vain. He died for no reason. If you're
saved by your own works, if you're justified in the sight of a holy
God by what you do, then Christ died for no reason. If you, by
your morality, your good deeds, your charity, your church membership,
your preaching, your teaching, your giving of tithes, your attendance,
if that's the way you're justified, Jesus Christ died in vain. If Christ died to bring in a
righteousness that can be secured by my works and by your works,
He died in vain. If Christ died on the cross to
redeem a people who might have been redeemed by their own goodness,
then Christ died in vain. There was no reason for Him to
come to earth. There was no reason for Him to become a man. There
was no reason for Him to be tried and tempted. 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. But there was a reason. We could
not do for God what God... what must be done, what God required. Someone once asked someone, I
forget who tells the story, but asked someone how long they'd
been a Christian, a believer, and the answer was, all my life. And the one who asked the question
said, well, that's just a little too long. I was a sinner, wretched, undeserving
of his love. I was headed for hell. Had one
foot in hell and one on a banana peel. I was heading there. On
my way. Skipping along as happy as I
could be. Right on into hell. And God stopped me in my tracks. And He intervened in my life.
And He divinely revealed the gospel to me. And He saved me
by His grace. Because He loved me and He gave
Himself for me. Mr. Spurgeon once said that to
teach that sinners can add anything to the glorious work of Christ
is criminal. It's a crime that insinuates,
first, God to be a fool, and it would mean that God condemned
His Son in vain. But He didn't. 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. Christ is the ark of God. Refuge
is in Him alone. If Noah had preached, and he
preached for 120 years, and how many came into the ark with him?
Just his family. But if he had preached that deliverance
from God's wrath was by climbing the highest mountain to be saved,
that would have been criminal. How criminal it would have been
since the highest mountains were covered by the flood of God's
wrath. The blood of millions would have
been upon Noah's hands. And some today are going to say,
well, to preach salvation by works will encourage people to
live a moral life. It will encourage them to be
virtuous and honest. It may cause them to trust in
their own morality, virtue, and righteousness, instead of the
perfect work, morality, and virtue, and righteousness that Christ
provides for His people. That is the case most every time. Religion seems to believe that
if you preach salvation is a gift of God, and salvation is by grace
alone, that it will cause folks to be
careless in sin. Listen, folks don't need any
help with that. We are by nature careless and we sin. And why
do men and women think that the free gift of salvation gives
a sinner a license to sin? Why is it just the opposite with
me? A sinner who God has saved by grace is going to be thankful
and be obedient to the One who loved them and gave Himself for
them. Is that not your experience?
Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid.
He loved me and gave Himself for me. I don't want to displease
Him. I don't want to disappoint Him. Everything today in preaching
seems to appeal to the flesh. People are motivated by rewards. I won't even get into that. It's
already 12 o'clock. We'd be here till this afternoon. Rewards in heaven. It's all going
to have a crown on my head so big that I'm going to have to
have a neck brace to hold my head up. Nonsense. It's nonsense. I'm not trying
to be funny. It's nonsense. People say stupid
things. Motivated by reward rather than
love, but not the true believer. Paul said, the love of Christ
constrained me. If I do everything that God commands
me to do, I'm still an unprofitable servant. So it can't be by my
works I'm still unprofitable. We preach Christ because we love
Him. We give because we love Him. We worship Christ because
we love Him. We attend His gospel because
we love Him. We tell others about Christ because
we love Him. And because we love the ones
that we tell. But we love Him because He first
loved 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. He said so on
the cross. It's finished. It's finished. and a child of God, and I'm closing
with this, refuses to frustrate, reject, despise, make void the
grace of God in Christ, for they know that the righteousness of
God does not come by the law, but by grace. Christ didn't die
in vain. Oh, no, no, no. Nothing or no
one can frustrate the grace of God. Webster defines frustrate
as preventing the progress or success and fulfillment of something. The success and fulfillment of
the grace of God cannot be prevented. It's always successful. And it's
always fulfilled in those whom the Lord purposed to fulfill
it. That's the Gospel. That's good
news. Christ loved certain distinguishing
and chosen sinners. He loved them and He gave Himself
for them. That's the Gospel. And no child
of God is ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. Why? Because it's
the power of God to everyone that believeth. I was made willing
when? In the day of His power. If He
hadn't intervened, I'd have never believed. Salvation is not of
David Edmondson. Salvation is of the Lord. And
He loved me and He gave Himself for me. That should encourage
you. And so does this sinner. So does
this sinner.