Good morning, brethren. Let's
be turning to Luke, Luke chapter nine. Luke chapter nine. Now this, our text takes place
after our Lord feeds the 5,000. And in verse 18, we find our
Lord in prayer. It says that it came to pass,
as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him. And that blessed my heart when
I read that. That's a sweet, blessed thought,
that our Holy Savior, praying to our Holy Father, has his disciples
with him there, that God would so bring sinners like us in darkness,
sinners like us full of folly and sin, that we should be brought
into the presence of holy God. And another thought about that
is that here and now, When we pray, when we're alone in our
closet, so to speak, and we pray to the Lord to know that Christ
is with us in our prayers and the Savior. He that sits on the
throne with his Father, ruling and reigning, that he should
come alongside us and not leave us alone, but that he should
help us in our infirmities. We're told how he gives us his
spirit, saying, likewise the spirit also helpeth our infirmities,
our weaknesses, our distractions, our short-sightedness, our pain,
our suffering. Everything that we're going through,
the Lord gives us his spirit to dwell with us and the Spirit
helps us in prayer in our infirmities for we know not what we should
pray for as we ought. There's a lot of times, every
time, I don't know what the best thing is. for the Lord's people
or for me. I mean, I understand that it's
Christ. You need Christ. But how the
Lord is going to bring this word to bear and to fruit in your
hearts, The Lord knows, and I pray that He does that. We don't know what we should
pray for as we are, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for
us with groanings which cannot be uttered. We pray about a building
and we trust that the Lord knows in his time, he knows what we
need and he provides exactly what we need. And I'm thankful
for that. And so it's by the same spirit
of God, which helps us in our prayers, that we are kept and
helped by the Lord so that we too, even more so than in our
prayers, we're helped, we're delivered from dead works. from dead works, vain works,
carnal works which cannot save. We're saved from foolish notions
and foolish ideas. And we are made to know the true
and living God. And it is by the redemption of
our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that this spirit, the spirit
of God is given. It's through the redemption.
that the Spirit of God is given to the Lord's people through
this redemption accomplished by our Savior. And the Spirit
is given who helps us, who brings this word to us and brings this
word to bear upon us and helps us so that we would hear and
know the true and living God. And this is what I want to speak
to you this morning. This is what I want to declare
to you this morning. I want to show you that there
is a difference. that the Lord makes in his people. We are often very critical and
very hard on ourselves, especially the people of God. We examine
ourselves and are often very disappointed in what we see,
but our Lord has made a difference and put a difference between
those that hear and those that do not hear. And I want to speak
about that difference in the redeemed of the Lord, a difference
that grace makes. So let's read all of verse 18,
Luke 9, 18. And it came to pass, as he was
alone praying, his disciples were with him. And he asked them,
saying, whom say the people that I am? So here's our Lord. He's
in prayer. And he turns to his disciples
now, having heard what the Father speaketh. And he turns and speaks
it to his disciples, exactly the way we preach. This is the
message which we have heard and declare unto you, John said.
And so our Lord turns to his disciples and asks them this
question. And this question is the beginning
of what reveals the difference and them that are the Lord's
and them that are lost. How that a difference grace makes. Whom say the people that I am? And the disciples began to tell
him the different ideas that the people had about this Jesus
of Nazareth. And as they say these things,
we see there's darkness. There's darkness in the heart
of man. There is deep darkness in the thoughts and in the mind
of man about the true living God. What we see here is that
there is no true understanding of who the Savior is except God
reveal salvation to your heart. We don't know the true and living
God by nature. There is great darkness and we
won't understand exactly what His redemption accomplished for
us. We don't know the depths of our
sin. We don't know the depths of our
depravity. Even we that believe don't know
the depths of it. But God is very gracious to reveal
Christ to his people. Now, we have ideas. And these
people offered up various ideas and possibilities about Christ. And all of them were completely
wrong. Everything that man came up with
was wrong about Christ. Verse 19, they answering said,
John the Baptist. Some say you're John the Baptist,
risen from the dead. But some say Elijah. And others say that one of the
old prophets is risen again. Now what that means most likely
is someone like Samuel, someone before David and before the prophets
that we know of Isaiah and Jeremiah. So someone like Samuel or one
of the judges or perhaps even Moses. One of the old prophets. Now for one thing we see here
that the disciples were speaking to the people and that's good. That's good. We should speak
to the people. we should speak to the people
of what we know. I don't know if these ideas came from when
they were out declaring the kingdom of God and healing the sick,
or if they heard these ideas when they were feeding the 5,000
and setting down the bread and the fish before the people. I
don't know when they were hearing these things, but this is what
they were hearing as they ministered among the people. And it's good
for us to speak to the people. and declare what we have heard,
and declare what Christ has done for us, what Christ has done
for me, a sinner. It's good for us to speak to
the people, and I encourage you to do that. But understand that
when you put yourself out there in that way, you're going to
hear all manner of foolish ideas, thoughts, and notions about your
Lord. and they're going to drag his
name through the mud and they're going to say foolish things,
dark things, sinful things about the Lord. You're going to hear
it. We have a Facebook page and there we advertise the conference
and there are some replies that are wicked, just foolish about
God. Facebook naturally just kind
of filters them out for the most part, but there's people that
say very vile things about your Lord. And I see it, and that's
what happens. If you speak of the Lord to man,
man in darkness is going to show you just how depraved, how dark,
how foolish his thoughts are. You'll see it. And that's because
the natural man sits in darkness. The natural man is full of darkness
and full of sin. And it's not just them, it's
even us by nature. And this is the glory of our
Savior, of the redemption of Christ, to take us out of that
darkness. When you see just how black and
filthy the heart of man is, to know Christ, to rejoice in Christ,
to see His redemption, to speak of Him who is the Savior of sinners,
and to rejoice in Him, that's a work of grace in your hearts
because by nature, The foolish things that man says, that's
us. And that's what God has delivered
you that believe Him from. He's taken us out of that. And
so, we have nothing to boast Him of ourselves. We sat in darkness
by nature and didn't know who Jesus Christ is. until God revealed
Him unto us in power and in glory by His Spirit and Word, and made
us to hear, made us to believe on Him. Now the people we're
describing, our Lord, we see even using religious things.
They used names from the Bible. They used figures, religious
figures in the Bible. John the Baptist. Elijah, or
one of the old prophets. They were speaking of religious
things. Isn't that enough? No. No. Man is very religious by nature,
and yet he's in darkness. And what the Lord shows his children
is that this Jesus of Nazareth is not just a man. He is a man
like unto us, yet without sin. But this is the God-man mediator
whom the Father sent to save His people from their sins. Christ came and redeemed sinners. He came and redeemed His people
who were of that stock of Adam, in darkness, in ignorance, not
knowing the true and living God. And the only way that we know
Him in truth now is by His Spirit. by the giving of His Holy Spirit. And the Spirit takes the things
of Christ through the Word and reveals them to sinners. He reveals
them to His people. The Lord does that. The Lord
reveals Christ to sinners. And by His grace, He manifests
His power. He manifests His glory so that
we know Christ, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. He
makes us to know the true and living God. He makes us to know
salvation. He makes us to know our Redeemer. That is a work of grace. And so first of all, hear what
the scriptures reveal, that by nature, we're darkness. just like these people saying
things, religious things, but not the truth. They didn't know
Christ in truth, and that's us by nature, and that's what we've
been delivered. You that believe Christ, that
hear his word, that's what we've been delivered from. You that
are in darkness, that's what we must be delivered from. that's
what he does he accomplishes salvation in our heart the Lord
said in Matthew 4 verse 16 the people which sat in darkness
saw great light and to them which sat in the region and shadow
of death light is sprung up Christ must come and reveal himself
to us because we sit in darkness And there's such a beautiful
thought even in that because that speaks of in Galilee is
where Christ our Lord primarily ministered to the people was
in Galilee and in that area. That was the region of darkness
that that light sprung up and the people sitting there were
in darkness. And it just makes me think how
that salvation has become the walls of God's people. That's
our city. We are members of the city of
God. And it's not in a physical location. Salvation has become our walls
and bulwarks. And what a picture it is that
there are people who sit in a region of darkness, not a physical region,
but a place of darkness that the Lord has purposed to bring
his light of salvation to and deliver us from death, and folly,
and the darkness of the natural man." He's delivered us. And
how he delivers us? He gives us a new birth. We were
born of the stock of Adam, in death, spiritual death, in ignorance,
having no understanding of the true and living God. But Christ
came in the likeness of Adam's seed, yet born of the Holy Ghost. He is very God. and very man so that he is the
God-man mediator, but he came and he delivered his people from
that death and gives us a new birth by his seed, his incorruptible
seed. It's not the seed of Adam that
knows the true and living God and understands God. It is the
new man formed in us by the seed of Christ whereby we hear and
rejoice in our God and what he's done for us. And so we must be
born again. And that's exactly what Christ
does for sinners. He gives us a new birth. He gives
his people a new birth. And so that we know him and worship
him in spirit and in truth. And this is why our Lord in bringing
salvation to us gives us his Holy Spirit, because it's not
by the flesh that we know him. It's in the new man. It's in
the new man that you that believe, believe Christ in spirit and
in truth. It's in the new man. That is
not a fruit of the flesh. What is of the flesh is death.
But what is of the spirit is life. And it is the fruit of
righteousness. And Paul said of this, 1 Corinthians
2.12, now we have received not the spirit of the world, We have
that by nature. We have not received that but
the Spirit which is of God that we might know the things that
are freely given to us. What is freely given to us? Salvation
by the Lord's grace. What is freely given to us? Jesus
Christ the Son of God. For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son. He freely gave Him. We didn't
earn Him. We don't deserve the salvation.
Christ is freely given for the redemption and salvation of His
people. Verse 14 of that same chapter,
1 Corinthians 2.14, But the natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit. This is not heard and understood
in the flesh. This is heard and understood
in the new man born of grace, of the Spirit, in truth, that
lives in the light of God and revealed in Christ. The natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they
are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned. And so our Lord reveals who are
His in that new man which He gives life to and brings forth. So that you who believe Christ
and trust Christ. I know that sometimes when you
hear that God has a people whom He chose, elected from before
the foundation of the world and gave them to Christ. And you
hear Christ and you know this is the Savior. This is salvation. I'm the sinner and I need this
Savior. I need this salvation. I believe
Him. I believe Him. But oh, am I one of the elect? Wait a minute, don't even go
there. You that believe Christ and know that he is the salvation
of God given for sinners, and you know I'm the sinner, Christ
is the Savior. His blood washes me from all
sin. The matter is settled then. It's
settled in Christ. You are of the elect, because
the natural man, though he can assent to these things in a very
carnal sense, has no real interest in Christ. But you that are sinners,
you do believe Christ. You need Christ. You know he's
salvation. That, brethren, is a gift of
God. That is the faith and grace of
God revealed in the new man. Let it be settled in your heart.
God has done this for me, for me, a vile sinner. And if you're
his, as we see in this text, a few verses from here, we see
that you'll follow him. You'll continue in Christ. Those
that only assent in word and deed, they fall away. Oh good,
I made that decision, that's good, it's all taken care of,
and they're done with it. But you that are Christ's will
follow Christ. You'll continue in Him, looking
to Him, believing Him, and He'll grow you by His grace and power. By the giving of the Spirit,
He'll grow you in that grace and knowledge, that understanding
of what He does for His people. And He'll continue to settle
that in your heart and bless you in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so He reveals this grace
now. We see Him reveal this grace
to His disciples. Verse 20, Luke 9, 20, He said
unto them, but whom say ye? that I am." We've heard what
flesh says, we've heard what darkness says, we've heard what
death says of Christ. Whom do you say that I am? Peter answering said, the Christ
of God. The Lord has revealed to us that
you are the Christ. that you've come to save us.
You're the promised seed. You are the Savior, the Savior
whom the Father hath sent. You see, our Lord does not leave
his people in darkness. It pleases Him to reveal His
Son in His people. It pleases Him. Our Lord said
of this time here, in Matthew 16, 17, He said, Blessed art
thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this
to you. This is not of your flesh, Simon.
Peter, this is of my Father in heaven, which has revealed this
unto you. That's the work of the Spirit.
And that's why I say, you that know Christ is the Savior, and
know I'm the sinner, that you're the sinner, in need of His blood,
His blood to wash away your sins, that's given to you by the Father. And you don't need to wonder,
am I elect? You know it. because faith is the gift of
God given to his people. And he manifests that hope and
that need, that desire, that hunger and thirst, which only
Christ can satisfy, only his righteousness can satisfy. And
so, the Lord has revealed it, and that's what he's revealed
in our hearts. It's a work of grace. Now, some
people, right, they look at religion, and they join up to this church,
or that church, or that religion, and they go through the steps.
the various ordinances and rules, or what the people say you should
do when they do those things, and they think, that's salvation. No, it is not. Christ is the
Savior. Now, we have ordinances. We're
going to Lord willing partake of the Lord's Supper later. We're
going to drink of the wine and eat of the bread. picturing Christ,
remembering what our Lord did for us. And it's for believers
who have been baptized by the Lord. By all means, partake of
these things. And we come to hear the word,
and we read his word, and we pray. Yes, we have those things, but
that's not salvation, is it? No, it is not. Christ is salvation. That's our hope, and that's why
we partake of these things, remembering our Lord. Christ is salvation. Christ is salvation. Look over
at Romans 10. Look over at Romans 10. And in
verse six, Paul begins to speak of the righteousness which is
of faith. The righteousness which is of
faith. That is, faith being the gift
of God, not the work of this flesh. But the gift of God in
us speaks in this manner. It speaks of Christ. If you look
down now at verse 8, Romans 10, 8, what saith it? What does the righteousness which
is of faith say? It says, the word is nigh thee. It's near you, even in thy mouth
and in thy heart. That is the word of faith which
we preach. And what he's saying there, what
he's speaking to there is that blessedness that the Lord works
in his people in the hearing of the word which hears of Christ
and Believes not something we do but it he puts it there by
his spirit in your mouth and in your heart Lord I believe
help thou mine unbelief save me Lord help me have mercy on
me the sinner and and save me from this darkness. Wash me of
my sins by your blood, your precious blood. Lord, make this word effectual
in my heart. He gives that to his people in
the preaching of the word, that if thou shalt, verse nine, confess
with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, just as Peter did, thou art the
Christ, son of the living God, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God hath raised him from the dead, as all his disciples
do. We believe that. Thou shalt be
saved. For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. For the scripture saith, whosoever
believeth on him shall not be ashamed. You shall not come short
of that eternal life, that salvation with your God that you seek.
You will not come short of it. You won't be ashamed. You will
not be ashamed. God has blessed you in Christ
and drawn you to him, and you will not come short of it. For
there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek. the same
Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. This is the
salvation. Whether we're Jew or Gentile,
there is one Savior, one salvation. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. And
our God says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord
shall be saved. You shall be saved. And so This
confession of Christ is a disowning of my works. It's a disowning
of confidence in what I have done for the Lord. That's done. I don't want to come before God
in that work of righteousness. I want to be found in Christ's
righteousness, not having any of my righteousness. That's done. I want to be found in Christ,
in Christ alone. That's the confession he gives
his people. Because we believe, we know,
we're certain. that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of the living God, who came and laid down His life, shed
His blood for the forgiveness of the sins of His people, to
put them away forever, and to give us life in Himself, who
is life. That's what the Lord does. So
we confess that we're sinners and have nothing to boast in,
save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And he's raised again for our
justification, for our life, that we might know him. He's
the promised seed of God. Now, our Savior at that time
said to Peter and the disciples, don't say anything about this
right now. Verse 21, he straightly charged them and commanded them
to tell no man that thing. But watch, here he preaches the
gospel, verse 22, saying, The son of man must suffer many things
and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes
and be slain and be raised the third day. This is our redemption. This is our gospel. This is our
hope, brethren. And he's saying, be silent on
this thing now. But as soon as this work is accomplished,
proclaim it from the housetops, declare it. And that's what we
do. We preach Christ, what he accomplished. Christ crucified,
declaring he suffered for our sins. And he was raised from
the dead for our justification. And so Peter didn't say anything
now, but now we say him because it's accomplished. It's done.
It's done. And so in this brief passage,
Our God makes known what is flesh and what is spirit. We see the
darkness of man's flesh. There's a lot of people in this
world that are very religious, very spiritual, they say, right? They seem to talk of spiritual
things and seem to speak of angels and spirits and other nonsense. But that's not life. That's not
salvation. They don't know God. They're
yet in darkness. Until we know Christ, that He
is my salvation, that He is my Savior. Until we know Him, we
don't know anything about the true and living God. It might
sound religious. It might sound fancy. It might
sound good. But it's nothing but death. It's nothing but death. Men even
know some doctrine about Christ, some true doctrine. But unless
they believe Christ, unless they need Christ to save them from
their sins, they don't know Him. A man born of the Spirit, however,
the Spirit of God, confesses, Christ is all. He's all my salvation, and He's
all I need to stand before holy God and be accepted of Him in
that day. Christ is all. And so, our Lord then gives the
following instructions, because, again, there's some that will
just make a good profession, and then fall away and have no
interest in Christ. But our Lord, He said these words. He said, this is how you're going
to know that the Lord has done this in your heart. This is what
the Lord works in His people. Verse 23 and 24. He said to them
all, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and
take up his cross daily and follow me. We walk looking to Christ. Our hope remains fixed in the
Lord Jesus Christ. We have no confidence in this
flesh. The more we hear of Christ, the
more we see what a sinner we are, and how we cannot save ourselves,
but how sufficient he is, how wonderful the Lord Jesus Christ
is. And so we follow him. We follow
him knowing that we died in him to the law, we died to the things
of this world, and we live unto him. For whoever will save his
life, shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake,
the same shall save it." That's in our confession of Christ,
and that's in our walk, continuing to walk in the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, one way to save your
life in this world is don't say anything about Christ, or say
the nonsense that this world says. Lie, deceive, say nothing
about Christ and you'll be fine. You'll get along with the world
very well because that's what man is. He's a liar, a deceiver,
and he sits in darkness full of darkness. But if you confess
Christ and declare what he's done for you, Just tell others
what he's done for you. You'll see that you're not very
welcome or well-liked in this world. It's just so. It's just so. And they'll murder
you in their heart, even if they don't murder you physically.
Paul said, I die daily. I die daily for this hope. 1
Corinthians 15 31, I die daily for the hope I have in Christ. And that's something that I can't
command you or tell you how to do. It's something that I can't
even tell myself how to do it. But the Lord works it by His
grace, by His Spirit and power in Christ, making Him living,
to live in my heart by faith. And that's what He does in His
people, so that He teaches us by His Word and by the giving
of His Spirit how we are to walk in Him and you'll see His grace
and power. You'll see Him keeping you and
teaching you and leading you and saving you over and over
again in this life because you are saved in and by the Lord
Jesus Christ. And our Lord puts everything
in perspective for us, verse 25 and 26. For what is a man
advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be
cast away? For whosoever shall be ashamed
of me, and of my words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed,
when he shall come in his own glory, and in his father's, and
of the holy angels." So left to ourselves, we wouldn't. We
can't do this. but by his grace and power he
forms Christ in our heart and he gives us love for Christ. All spiritual gifts which we
can't force ourselves to bring forth, but he works it in us
and shows us how precious the Lord Jesus Christ is. And you
that see how precious Christ is and have no confidence in
yourself and see what sinners you and I are, but see how sufficient,
how wonderful, how lovely Christ is. Rejoice, because that's His
gift. That's what He gives to His children. He reveals Christ in them, the
hope of glory. I pray He bless that word to
our hearts, brethren. Amen.