Good evening. If you'd like,
go back to 2 Timothy chapter 1. Last Sunday evening, about this
time last week, Gabe brought a message on assurance. He chose
as his text, the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect
of righteousness, quietness and assurance. From that text, he
proved that Christ is the object of our assurance. The ground
of our assurance is that our Lord was judged, punished, shed
his blood, laid down his life, and rose again. And the enjoyment
of our assurance is that because of all that he did, we can now
draw near to God and come boldly before the throne of grace in
Christ. At the start of that message,
some of you may have thought you were having deja vu, Gabe
read the same passage he read this evening. And as he read it last week,
there were a couple of verses that caught my attention. The
first was verse two. To Timothy, my dearly beloved
son, this is a letter from a father to a son. And as he read, he
got to the end of verse 12, and because of verse two standing
out to me, when he read verse 12, I did not read it in the
voice of Paul writing this letter. I heard it as the voice of God
the Father speaking. And at the end of verse 12, God
the Father says, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded
that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him
against that day. Last week, Gabe focused on the
believer's assurance. Tonight, Lord willing, we'll
look at the Father's assurance. In this sentence, the Father
tells us who he believes. Something has been committed
to his trust. He is certain that which has
been committed will be kept. And lastly, we'll look at the
result of the Father's assurance on that day. First off, who does
the Father believe? On whom does the Father's trust
reside? Turn over to Ephesians chapter
one. Last week, Gabe said that he
had some difficulty choosing his text, and I was the same
this week. I'm starting in 2 Timothy, but
we'll spend a lot of time here in Ephesians one. Let's read the first 12 verses
together of Ephesians 1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the
faithful in Christ Jesus, grace be to you and peace from God
our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, 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 love. having predestinated us unto
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according
to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved, in
whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of
sins, according to the riches of His grace. wherein he hath
abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known
unto us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure,
which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the
fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in
Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even
in him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being
predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all
things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to
the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ." Who
first trusted in Christ? Verse 3. Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God the Father first trusted
in Christ Jesus. Should that come as a surprise
to anyone? After all, this is the Son of
God, so shouldn't the Father's trust rest upon Him? But Christ
Jesus is also the Son of Man. We say it, we believe it, Christ
Jesus is a man. But can we really grasp that? It's as difficult a truth to
grasp as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit
is one God. Christ Jesus is a man. He's not half man and half God. He's a man who walked this earth. Well, Obie, sounds to me like
you're saying that God the Father put his trust in a man. You're absolutely right. I am. Take a moment to try to grasp
that. The eternal, omniscient, omnipresent
God places His trust and His faith in a man. The man, Jesus Christ. Of all the children of men, the
Lord said, they are all gone aside. They are all together
become filthy. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. That includes this one. That
includes everyone. None of us have and none of us
can do good. This man though, the Lord Jesus
Christ, he was born the seed of woman, He didn't inherit the
fallen seed of our father Adam. He walked before God and man
perfectly. He kept the law. Without any deviation, the holy
and just law, he fulfilled it in every jot and every tittle.
No charge can be laid to his account. And this man received from God
the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice from
the excellent glory, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well
pleased. I know whom I have believed,
Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of man. What has
God the Father committed to this man? Now, most often when I've
read this verse, I have read that word committed with the
same sense of given. And the Father has given much
to Christ. In fact, he's given him all things,
all judgment, all power, glory, and a name above every name.
But this word committed has a little deeper meaning than just to give. We're currently in a season of
giving things. And when you receive a gift from
someone, that person transfers ownership of that gift. It no
longer belongs to them. They no longer have any say over
how they use that object, how you use that object, where you
put it, what you do with it. It's not theirs. They've given
it to you. When this word committed, in
this commitment, there's no change of ownership or responsibility. The person doing the committing
retains the ownership of the object. They are simply entrusting
it to another's care. And I'll try to explain this
with a couple of examples using myself first. Tonight, I stand
in the pulpit. Gabe is the pastor of this congregation. When he came and asked me to
stand here, he didn't say, I'm giving you the pastorship of
Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church. He said, I need some help. It
is Gabe's responsibility to see that the one true gospel is declared
from this pulpit. And tonight, he has committed
to me that responsibility. And I pray, by God's grace, I'm
able to fulfill that responsibility, that commitment to me. Another
example is when we go to the bank. You walk up to the teller
and you hand them some money. You're not giving a gift to that
teller. That money is your money. You're
gonna want it back. but you're entrusting the care
of those funds to that bank to keep it safe for you. So what is it that God the Father
has committed to the Son, to Christ? Turn over with me to
2 Corinthians 5. We've been spending quite some
time in Matthew chapter 1. In verse 21, speaking of our
Lord's birth, says, he shall save his people from their sins. God the Father has committed
to the man, Jesus Christ, the reconciliation of those sinners
that he gave to him, gave to the Son. 2 Corinthians 5, verse
18. All things are of God, who hath
reconciled us to himself. This reconciliation is God's. It belongs to Him. By Jesus Christ,
the Father committed to Christ the reconciliation of sinners. All things are of God, who hath
reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us
the ministry of reconciliation, to wit, that God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses
unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation."
Christ Jesus has the commitment from God the Father to reconcile
his people to him. Our text reads, I know whom I
have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that
which I have committed unto him against that day." A father having
committed to Christ Jesus the reconciliation of his elect sinners
also places his confidence that he is able to keep that which
he has committed. He's going to keep that reconciliation
safe. Everyone in here is a child of
Adam. We all have in us the spirit
of disobedience, dead in trespasses and sin. A nature which wars
against God and despises his grace. And if it were possible,
If it were possible, we would lose our salvation, if it was
left up to us. In fact, if it were left up to
me, I would probably throw it away, despise it. My nature hates it. How does Christ keep dead sinners
reconciled to the living holy God? Turn over to Colossians
1. Colossians 1, verse 19. For it pleased the Father that in him, in Christ Jesus,
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. The man, Jesus
Christ, having been committed with the reconciliation of God
and sinful men, took the sin of those he came to save. And
having taken ownership of it, he suffered and shed his blood
and suffered our death and the judgment of our sin. He carried
our sin far away, fully satisfying the law, the just and holy law,
and our Lord arose for our justification. Now those for whom Christ bore
our sin, suffered, hung on that cross, shed his blood and died,
endured the grave and rose again, those of us found in him we stand
before the just and holy God, as holy as he is, reconciled. He ascended and is even at the
right hand of God, making intercession for us. How long will he make
intercession? Because he ever liveth, he ever
liveth. forever. He ever lives to make
intercession for those he came to save. By his death, burial,
and resurrection, the enmity has been abolished and peace
has been obtained between God and men. You can turn back to
Ephesians chapter 1. For our outline, point one is,
who does God the Father place his trust in when he says, I
know whom I have believed? God the Father places his trust
in the man, Jesus Christ. Point two, what was committed
to Christ by the Father? The reconciliation or salvation
of those chosen sinners who are in Christ from the foundation
of the world. Point three, the father is persuaded,
he is confident that Christ is able to keep or to guard the
reconciliation he has purchased by the shedding of his blood
because when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on
the right hand of the majesty on high." Point four, what is
the result of the father's assurance on that day? Going back to our examples of
committing something, if you can see Gabe over here in the
corner, He's sitting there, he's relaxed, as relaxed as he can
be, and he's listening. You know what Gabe did this afternoon? I don't know this for sure, but
I'm speculating. He went home, and I imagine he
got a nap in this afternoon. He rested. He didn't go over
notes. He didn't review anything. He
didn't look and worry and ask God for a message and wonder
how he was going to present it. He had committed all of the service
to me. I bore those burdens, not him. When you deposit your money in
the bank, do you go out then and hire a security guard to
sit there in the bank and guard your money? Of course not. You've committed that money to
the trust of the bank. They're responsible for it. You
sit back and relax, knowing those funds are as safe as the bank
can make them. God the Father committed into
the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ the reconciliation of his elect
loved people. Is he now, as many present him,
worried, anxiously awaiting to see if men will accept him? No, the Father is satisfied. The Son has died and has redeemed
all those that were given to Him. Now, beyond resting after
having committed something to someone else, there's an expectation
of receiving back what's been committed. In just a few more moments, I'll
give my closing remarks, and I hope the Lord has blessed this
message to us. And I hope that Gabe will be
able to honestly say, my confidence, my trust, my commitment was well
placed. You, when you return back to
the bank to get the funds that you left there, expect the funds
to be there. And when you pull up to the teller,
say I want my money, they give it to you. You leave well-pleased
that your confidence, your commitment was well-placed. Say this with the utmost reverence. God the Father expects a return
on his investment. on his commitment to Christ. Ephesians 1 verse 6 says, to
the praise of the glory of his grace. And verse 12 says that
we should be to the praise of his glory. All of us in here at some point
have been committed with something. And it usually starts out pretty
small. Generally, parents are the first
to commit something to us. We'll say, for instance, to our
child, take this glass of milk and put it on the table. That
seems like a small commitment. Mmm. Until you've lived through
a few glasses of spilt milk, maybe some broken glass on the
floor, the times that you make that request aren't always a
light-handed request. You watch that child carefully
as they endeavor to get that glass of milk to the table. And when our child Sometimes
it takes a few tries. When that child makes it to the
table, puts that milk on the table, and there's nothing spilled,
there's a moment in that parent of joy and satisfaction. They've done it. Finally. Years down the road, from that
glass being carried successfully, that same child is out with their
friends. They are away from the watchful
eye of the parent. But someone else sees them. And
they call up the parent. And they say, I was out tonight. And I saw your son or your daughter
out with their friends. And I just wanted to let you
know. They were doing well. They were well-behaved. They
were doing what you expect them to do. The parent that hears that has
a moment of satisfaction, a moment of peace, knowing that all that
labor, all those times of correction, all that teaching, something
got through, at least for that one moment in time. I can't speak to God the Father's
reaction. I'm full of sin, and He's not. But I do know that He is well
pleased with His Son, and I do know that He loves to hear His
Son's glory spoken of. Throughout eternity, We chosen,
elect, redeemed, justified, sanctified sinners shall sound forth the
praise that Jesus Christ, in whom the Father first trusted,
has done all things well." And that satisfies the Father. to the praise of the glory of
His grace, Christ Jesus. In closing, I want to bring back
to our memory the message last week that addressed our assurance. The work of righteousness shall
be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever. The object of our assurance is
Christ Jesus, our Lord. The ground of our assurance is
that our Lord laid down His life and rose again. And the enjoyment
of our assurance is that through Him we can draw nigh unto God
with a true heart. The Father has declared His assurance,
I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able
to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." The
Lord Jesus Christ is the object of the Father's assurance. He looks to Christ alone. The
ground upon which the Father's assurance rests is the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. He who bore our sins, shed His
blood, who endured separation from God for our sakes, and died. He rose again from the grave
to reconcile God and His people." The God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ,
is the very foundation of God the Father's assurance. And the
enjoyment of God's assurance throughout the ages of eternity.
Those of us accepted in the beloved will sing praise to the glory
of His grace, our Lord Jesus Christ. One final thought. What is that day? Is it today? Is it tomorrow? Is it that great day of judgment? Now is the day of salvation. Don't put this off. Don't wait
for another day. But I pray that today, God the
Holy Spirit will be pleased to drive this home to our hearts. If I am, if you are, looking
to anyone, anything, Any time other than the Lord Jesus Christ,
we will never have assurance before God. The Father looks to Christ alone. May God be pleased to turn our
eyes to Him alone as well. Lord, slay our natural flesh.
Dwell in us that the enmity therein might be abolished and peace
shall reign.