John chapter 15 verse 14 says, You are my friends. If you do whatsoever I command you. Now that's our Lord Jesus Christ speaking. And he said you are my friends. If you do whatsoever I command you.

When I was at the conference a few weeks ago in Rocky Mount, one of the men that was speaking either read this verse or quoted this verse. And as soon as he did, I experienced an emotion that is very common to me. And I've been thinking about this ever since that happened. And it made me want to bring a Bible study on it because I believe the emotion that I feel when I read this verse or verses like this, I believe that emotion is very common among all of God's people. And that emotion is a rollercoaster feeling of going from high to low. up to down.

Verse 14, he said, you are my friends. Well, that's wonderful news, isn't it? So glad to hear that. That is just wonderful news. You are my friend. That's, that's great. If you are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. That's the moment my heart sinks right there. Anybody know that feeling? Everything he said leading up to this is so glorious. Look at verse 11. He said, these things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. And what he's saying is, I died for you. That's what he's saying. I died for my friends. I died for my friends. That's who my elect are. That's who the father chose in his love. That's who I redeemed in my blood, my friends. And in verse 14, he said, you are my friends. my elect, my redeemed, my saved, you're my saved, if there's a condition on this, if you do whatsoever I command you, if you obey me in every jot and tittle to the fullest degree, You are my friends.

Now again, that's the moment my heart sinks. In my flesh, that's the moment my hope plummets. And I'm not just saying that. That's the truth. That's my true experience when I hear something like that.

Let me show you a few more scriptures like this one. Let's see if you end up feeling as low and hopeless in your flesh as I do in mine, all right? Let's see how far down can we get, all right? Go over to 1 Corinthians 15. verse Corinthians 15 verse one moreover brethren I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you which also you have received and wherein you stand by which also you are saved If you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain.

You feel that roller coaster? High, higher, higher, higher. We read that and think, now, you know, I can't speak for you, but I'm just going to tell you my experience. I read something like that and I think, I know me. I do believe that there was a time I did not know me, and I believe I'm gonna learn a lot more of me as time goes on. Maybe there was a time when I couldn't say this, but now I can honestly say this. I know that I am not gonna keep in memory what has been preached unto me. Are you all just constantly focusing on the messages and constantly thinking about Christ and everything's just, you know, just forget the world, I don't need the world, just, is that y'all? I wouldn't put it past me at all to believe in vain. I would not put that past me at all.

Well, that doesn't sound good, Gabe. You're our pastor. Well, you can get another one, but he's going to be in the same boat. He's going to be in the same boat. I don't trust anything about me. I do not. You know, people want to know, what's your opinion on that? I wouldn't give you my opinion for anything. I don't trust my opinion. Well, Gabe, what do you think? Who cares what I think? I cannot count on me for anything. I can't count on me for anything.

Turn over to Colossians 1 with me. Colossians 1 verse 19 says, For it pleased the Father that in him, in Christ, should all fullness dwell, and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself. By him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven. and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight, if You continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I, Paul, am made a minister."

He declared that wonderful, glorious, redeeming declaration, and he said, it all applies to you. It all applies to you if You continue being grounded and settled, not moving away from the hope of the gospel. That's a big declaration. If. If.

Go over to Hebrews 3. Hebrews 3 verse 6, But Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of our hope firm unto the end. Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith today, if you will hear His voice, Harden not your hearts as in the provocation, that time of provoking, in the days of temptation in the wilderness when, you know, Israel was out in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore, I was grieved with that generation and said, they do always err in their heart, and they have not known my ways, so I swear in my wrath they shall not enter into my rest. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.

If. That's a big responsibility. That's a big responsibility.

One more. All right. Just one more. Go to 1 John 2. Verse 1, it says, My little children, these things write I unto you that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he is the propitiation, he's the covering, the atonement, the bloody victim, the bloody sacrifice for our sins. And not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

Thank God he didn't just die for the Jews, he died for the Gentiles too. That includes me and you. A people out of every tribe, nation, kindred, and tongue from all over this world.

Verse three, and hereby we do know that we know him. You know, this is life eternal that we might know him. Verse three, hereby we do know that we know him. if we keep his commandments. He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word in him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him. If, that's how you know. If, now my guess is if you're anything like me, and if you know anything of yourself, if you know anything of your sin, anything of your lack, anything of your inability, you're at the bottom of the roller coaster right here with me. My guess is you're down here with me, okay? After hearing verses like we just read, we're at the bottom. Rock bottom.

Here's what I want to show all of us this morning. This is what I want to encourage all of us in knowing about this. If this, if that our God has recorded in his word, it is not a cause, but an effect. It is not a cause, but an evidence. This condition, it is a condition, but this condition is not based on us and our doing. This condition is based on Christ and his doing. And the phrase that I want all of us to leave having gotten a hold of is everything that God has required, Christ has provided.

Why was all that written? It was written to tell us what God requires. Everything that God has demanded, Christ has fulfilled. Now follow me through these clarifying, these redeeming, these uplifting again scriptures, okay? Go with me to Matthew 5. And I want to point out that this right here is an important scripture to understand. If we ever come to know this, we'll know the truth that will make us free. This is an important scripture to understand.

Matthew 5, verse 17. Our Lord said, think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. Christ came into this world for the purpose of fulfilling God's law for his people in death and in life. Now, again, just really get a hold of this, okay? Everybody knows that he came to die. Everybody knows that. Everybody knows that he came to die. What we also need to know is he came to live. He came to live. He came to fulfill two things for his people. Justice. and justification." Just and justifier. He fulfilled justice in his death and justification in his life. He paid the sin debt for his people and he earned the righteousness for his people.

God said to his people, you have to die because of your sin. And if God has showed us anything of Christ, we're going to say, thank God that's on Christ. That's on Christ. We'll look to Christ for that. Now you have to die. You have to die. Right. According to the law, that's on Christ. God also said, you have to die because of your sin. And he said, you can't live without righteousness. And if God will continue revealing the truth to us, we'll say, thank God, that's on Christ. That's all on Christ. Christ came and accomplished both for his people. Christ did it all. Christ satisfied it all.

Now what part is laid back on me? You're in Christ, none of it. If you're out of Christ, all of it. He didn't die for you or live for you. But if God the Father put you in him, he died for you and lived for you. He did it all, he satisfied it all, he paid it all, he fulfilled it all, he settled it all. And you say, you know, somebody will say, what part of it all? All of it all. All of it all. Verse 17, think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I'm not come to destroy but to fulfill. Every time we read where the scripture says, if you, the gospel cries, Christ did. Christ did. Christ did that for you. Christ has already done it.

Turn over to Romans 3. Verse 23 says, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, that bloody covering, through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say at this time, his righteousness. that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

He was just in punishing the sins of his people by shedding his blood on the cross of Calvary. And he was the justifier of his people by living a perfectly obedient life of righteousness. And he gave that perfect record to his people to be their own record of obedience.

See if this makes sense to you. When the scripture says, here's how you can know if God is satisfied and God is pleased, it's if you live like this. You look at yourself and say, well, I don't see that here. Look to Christ. You see it in him.

Did he hold that confidence steadfast to the end? Every if in there, don't look at yourself, look to Christ. Look to Christ. I just don't know. Yeah, we never will if we're looking right here. Look to Christ. Did he do it? Because here's what he did. He lived a life and then traded with you. He said, here, this is mine. This is for you. Give me yours. And let's go to the judgment of God. That's what he did.

He was the justifier of his people by living for them the life they needed and giving that to them and then causing them to stand before God in Christ's life. We live in his life. We live and move and have our being in him, not in ourselves, in him. By the substitution of himself with his people, everything God required, Christ fulfilled. We couldn't. We couldn't.

And he said right here, you're going to know who Christ did this for by this evidence. God will give that man or woman faith to believe on Christ. Christ. Did you say election? No, I said Christ. That man or woman will believe that Christ accomplished all of this by himself. That man or woman will realize in my sinful flesh, there is no way I could do any of this. There's no way I could help him at all. In my flesh, I'm at the bottom. And they will with their whole heart. Believe that Christ accomplished everything God required to the fullest finished degree.

That man or woman will look to Christ and will hope in Christ and will cast his or her all on Christ and say either Christ did it for me and I'm good or he didn't do it for me and I'm damned. But it's in the hands of Christ. By God's grace, that man or woman will not turn back to the deeds of the law. The faith of Christ in that man or woman will keep their confidence in Christ steadfast to the end. It'll be Christ.

That man or woman will be confident that every if in scripture does not lay on his or her own shoulders, but on the shoulders of Jesus Christ alone. Every if in the scripture. lays on the shoulders of Jesus Christ alone.

Go to Philippians 1 with me, I'm almost finished here. Philippians 1, verse 1 says, Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus, which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons, grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you. Always in every prayer of mine for you all, making requests with joy for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. The one who started the work will perform the work All the way to the end. Who put the confidence in here in the first place? He did. Has that confidence going to stay there? He's going to do it. Has that confidence going to be kept? It's going to be kept by the power of God all the way to the end. All the way to the end.

And therefore, that's why the message of the gospel is rest. Rest. All these glorious things will come to you if Christ rests. Just rest.

Look at Philippians 2 verse 12. Philippians 2 verse 12. Wherefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Well. How do we do that? What is our salvation? What's the rationale on it? What do we settle in our mind on it? We're gonna work this thing out. What is our salvation? Verse 13, it is God which worketh in you both to will and do of his good pleasure, period. That's it. There it is right there. You settled on that? Pretty settled on that. Whatever you will and do in regard to salvation, that's not you. You're not doing it. That's God Almighty in you. That's God's will concerning you. That's God's doing concerning you.

Go to Colossians 2. Verse 6, as you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him. Not in the law, not in the flesh, not in your works, Him. Verse 7, rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy. Well, I got a little philosophy I'd kind of like to throw in there. And vain deceit, that's just the lies of man. After the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in Him. You're complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power.

If, now let's see, hold on, let's see how things go. This is how the end will be if you're complete in Him. You're already finished and complete in Him. By Him, through Him.

I'll close on this, go to 1 Thessalonians 5. 1 Thessalonians 5. Verse 24. Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it. who also will do what? Everything he just said in this chapter. Just read the whole chapter sometime. For the sake of simplicity, look at verse 16. Rejoice evermore. You feel like you accomplished that? Just on cloud nine, high in the sky, just rejoicing. Is that you? Well, that's Christ for you. Pray without ceasing. Is that you? That's Christ for you. Spirit groans with intercessions that we could never utter. In everything give thanks. Is that you? Oh, thank you for that, Lord. That's Christ for you. You know, for his own death, his own cross, he took bread and he'd break it and he gave thanks for what he was about to accomplish for his people. This is the will of God in Christ Jesus, quench not the spirit, despise not the preaching of the word, prove all things, hold fast that which is good. Do you hold fast that which is good? No, but Christ does it for you. Abstain from all appearance of evil and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly. And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it. He will preserve you blameless. If God has commanded it, Christ has provided it. Just rejoice evermore in him. Rest forevermore. In Him. It's all on Him. It's all on Him. Amen.