Good morning again. If you want
to turn to your text, it's 1 Peter chapter 5. Peter chapter 5. Brandon took me by Ural's new
building yesterday, and I got to see all the progress, and
I'm excited for you guys. Exciting to see this place is
bursting at the seams, and I have no doubt the Lord's gonna fill
them pews over in the other place, too, so. Great to be with you. Everybody
in Lexington sends their well wishes, their thoughts, and their
prayers. They told me to tell you all hi, and we can't wait till
we can have a conference again, so we can see everybody. 1 Peter
chapter five, and look at verse 10. See if you can savor every
word of this, because we're gonna stay in this verse here. We're
not gonna move from it. but the God of all grace, who
hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. After
that, you have suffered a while. Make you perfect, establish,
strengthen, settle you. This verse of scripture begins
in a wonderful and a beautiful place. It actually begins where
preaching must begin. with the person and the character of God.
I think there's something that my pastor has impressed on me
over the years. It's the preaching of the gospel
does not begin with man and his depravity and his needs and things
like that. That must be preached. That's not where it begins. It
begins with the person and the attributes and the characteristics
of God himself. And look how he describes himself
here. He says, I'm the God of all grace. I get a little excited
when I read that, the God of all grace. There's something
to that, and I want to talk about that at length. When I was looking
at the scripture, did you know there are only four times in
the scripture where it refers to Him as the God of all, followed
by a descriptive phrase? And I thought it would have been
in there thousands of times, because He's the God of everything at all
times. But yet, there's only four times the Scripture says
He's the God of all, followed by something else. And briefly,
I want to share those with you. You don't have to turn to them.
I'm going to read them to you. Let me share these with you. This is the first
time it's used. Jeremiah 31, verse 1 says, At the same time,
saith the Lord, will I be the God of all the families of Israel,
and they shall be my people. Now, this is beautiful and it's
interesting. The very first time this phrase
is used, the God of all something, it speaks of the Lord in Him
being the God of a particular people. It speaks of Him being
the sovereign God of election, the God who chooses. The first
time it's used, that's where salvation begins, with God and
His choosing. Now, what do I mean by that,
by election, by God chooses? It's very simple. Beginning of
the Bible, in the beginning God, that's where we must begin, with
the Lord. God chose. He chose who would be saved.
He chose the people in Christ. He purposed their salvation.
He purposed to be merciful and to be gracious to them. And because
He chose them and He purposed to save them, they must be saved.
simple as that. There's no way they can't be.
Now, if you can take the natural man, and you can have him read
this book, and he can actually see from inside here intelligently
that the Bible does preach election, that God chose before the foundation
of the world who will be saved, he will walk away with this.
Because many may have said, that sounds very cold and arbitrary.
As if the Lord just at random said, well, I'll take you, and
I'll take you, and I guess you, but not you, and not you. Just
a very cold and arbitrary thing, but how does the text here describe
it? He says he's the God of all the families of Israel. You see, he's a family man. This
is a God who has a family. The patriarch of his family,
the one who sits at the head of the table, is his son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And make no mistake, folks, this
is where all God's love, all his favor, all his happiness,
all his acceptance is all found in this one man, in the patriarch,
in the one who sits at the head of the table, his son. And he
chose his son. Make no mistake about that. But
his son has a bride. He has a people, he has a church,
the elect, that have always been eternally united to him. And
I don't understand that. I don't understand how that works. But
every believer, we have always been eternally united to Christ.
There's never been a time that we've been separated. How close
is this union? How real is it? The father loves
the bride with the same love wherewith he loves his son. That's
how deep, how real that union really is. Who's God going to
choose? He's a family man. He chose his
family. He chose the people that were
eternally united to his son. That's who he chose. Now, this
scripture, 1 Peter 5, 10, this speaks to believers, and I wanna
speak to believers that are here this morning. And so we have to know,
am I part of the family? We're gonna talk about that over
and over, the family, it's the family, the Lord has a family. Am I part
of the family? Well, you can know, right now you can know.
You have to be able to answer to the family name. And this
is the name wherewith she shall be called the Lord our righteousness."
Now, can you answer that name? What does that mean, the Lord
our righteousness? It's very simple. God's demand is righteousness.
It's perfection. It's holiness in every way, in
every attribute, in every shape, in every form. He demands righteousness. Jesus Christ is my only righteousness
before God. It is His work on the cross that
took away my sins. He bore them in His body. He put them away.
I have them no more. I'm righteous. He walked the
paths of obedience and righteousness in this world. He kept God's
law perfectly, and we were in Him in that union. Therefore,
we have His righteousness. His faith is our faith. He was
the one that was faithful to His Father even unto death, honoring
His Father in all things, always doing His Father's will every
step of the way. Somebody had to believe God perfectly. Someone
had to obey God perfectly, and He did it. He is our righteousness
before God, the Lord our righteousness. Now, if that's your hope, right
there, that He is your righteousness before God, make no mistakes,
folks, you're part of the family, part of that eternal union with
the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Father loves you with the same
love wherewith He loves His Son. That's the first time it's used,
and it's talking about Him being the God of a particular people
in a loving and saving way, but this is the second time it's
used, very interesting. Jeremiah. He says, Behold, I am the Lord,
the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for
me? Let me answer the question real quick. No, there's absolutely
nothing too hard for him. He's omnipotent. He's all-powerful.
Everything is easy for him. But notice this, the first time
he says, I'm the God of all something, he speaks of being the God of
a particular people in a loving and a saving way. He saved a
particular people. And yet now he says, but I'm
king, I'm ruler, I'm sovereign over all flesh. And make no mistake,
he is. He is the King over every single
man. He controls all men, their actions, their thoughts, their
will, every single aspect about them in all things, in all actions,
at all times. He is the Lord. He's in control
of everybody. Here's a scripture for you to back that up. Daniel
4.35, and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing.
And he doeth according to his will in the armies of heaven
and amongst the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his
hand or say unto him, what doest thou? Those who love him and
seek his face, he's sovereign over them. Those who hate him
and defile his name, he's sovereign over them too. Those who hate
the fact that he's sovereign over them, he's sovereign over
that too. He's the God over all flesh.
Third time it's used. Second Corinthians one verse
three says this, blessed be the God, even the father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and the God of all comfort. Now the concept of comfort is
relative, isn't it? One thing that comforts one person
is not comforting to another, but there's only one thing that
comforts the family, knowing that there is nothing I need
to do to be saved. It's the only thing. This is
Isaiah chapter 40, verse one. Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people
sayeth your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem.
Don't throw stuff at them, don't scare them. Speak comfortably
to them. Speak peace to them for three reasons. Their warfare
is presently accomplished. Their iniquity is presently pardoned,
for she hath, past tense, already done, received of the Lord's
hand double for all her sins. At warfare, who we were at war
with? My sin. condemn me for the law of God.
It's gone. The Lord Jesus Christ bore in
His body. He put it away. It is gone. That enemy is put down.
There was a war between the Father and me. There was enmity. I had
created enmity between me and my Maker. And yet there is peace
between the Father and I because the Lord Jesus Christ has made
our peace with God. Our iniquity was born too. It's
over, it's gone, it was taken away. Every man who has ever
sinned must be punished. And folks, we have already been
punished in the person of our Redeemer. When he hung on that
cross, we hung there too. And folks, there is no double
jeopardy with God. The price has already been paid and it
is done. And that's the only thing that
could comfort a sinner, this God of all grace. And the last
time it's used, it's in our text. And he says, I am the God of
all grace. What does that mean? Grace. What does it mean for the Lord
to be gracious to a man? It means this, it is his capacity
to be kind, to provide for a man who not just misses the mark,
who just doesn't deserve it, that doesn't take it far enough.
A man who is warred against his grace and his kindness as long
as he's lived. It's his capacity to be kind,
to provide for a man who has rebelled against God from the
day he was born, and he's kind to him anyways. That's the grace
of God. Now my question is, what does that look like? The absolute
grace of God. Our text here begins with a three
letter word that when it's talking about grace in the scriptures,
in an illustration, it gives you something very powerful.
And that three letter word is but. It means in spite of. Let me
show you what I mean. Turn to Genesis chapter six. What does it look like to be
saved by the God of all grace? This is Noah, Genesis six, chapter
five. And God saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Lord that
He made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart.
And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from
the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing,
and the fowls of the air. For it repenteth Me that I have made
them." Now, I want to point something out. What the Lord saw this thousands
of years ago, however long it was, that every imagination of
the thought of a man's heart is only evil constantly at all
times. That is exactly what he sees
when he looks at the natural man's heart today. Nothing has
changed. What does that mean? What is the heart? The heart
of every aspect of the man. It's what we think. It's what
we want. It's what we love. It's what we do. It's our motives.
It's our intentions. Every aspect of it. And it says
it's only evil and that continually. It can do no good. And this is
why Salvation by Works is a pipe dream that could never work.
because we can do no good before God. We can't keep the law, all
we can do is break it. It is impossible. What he saw those
thousands of years, this is exactly what he sees when he looks at
a man's heart now, the natural heart. Here's grace, look at
verse eight. But, this three letter word,
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Now a question,
why? Was Noah better? Was there something
in Noah that the Lord saw and he says, I want that one because
of something in him. The truth of the matter is this, because
it makes the glory of God greater, Noah was very likely worse than
everyone else. Because when the Lord saves the
worst of sinners, it makes his glory that much greater. Noah
wasn't better, folks. Every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil and that continually. But Noah found
grace. You want to know why? Because
he's part of the family. Because before the foundations of the
world were ever built, God chose Noah in Christ, because Noah
was united to the Lord Jesus Christ. And since he purposed
to be merciful and gracious to him, and the Lord Jesus Christ
stood as his surety, and he is the lamb slain before the foundation
of the world, Noah was saved. That was it, not for any goodness
in Noah. It says, Noah found grace. Was he looking for it?
Noah was fulfilling his sinful lust just like every other man
when the Lord found him. Just like when he found me and
you, just doing what we wanted to do. But Noah found grace.
He found it when he wasn't even looking for God. The Lord was
looking for him. That's salvation by grace. Let
me give you another one. Turn to Ephesians chapter two. It's Paul speaking to the church
in Ephesus, Ephesians 2 verse 1. Paul says, and you hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sins. So in Genesis 6 we see
the first half of the problem, total depravity, that man can
do no good, that every imagination of the thoughts of the heart
is only evil and that continually. Here's the other part of the problem
with that nature, it's dead. God has demands for faith, for
repentance, change your mind, to love God, to love your neighbor,
those things. But here's the natural man right here. He's
dead. He can't. He can't believe. He can't change
his own mind. He's dead. Where did the Lord
find us? Dead in sins. Go on reading. Verse 2, wherein
in time past you walked according to the course of the world, according
to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience. He says it gets much worse. Not
that just you were disobedient and you were dead, you were devil
worshipers. The prince of the power of the air, Satan, that's
who you were following. Go on reading, verse 3, among whom
also we all had our conversations in time past, in the lusts of
our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. All
of us were doing the exact same thing. We were fulfilling our
own lusts. We were following Satan. We were doing what we wanted
to do, not seeking God. Verse four though, here's grace,
but God who is rich in mercy. I never get tired of asking the
Lord for mercy. That's for two reasons. Number one, because
I need it. Opportunity. Remember, I must have mercy. I'm not going to leave him alone.
Here's the other reason though. It's because he delights to show it. This
is a God who delights to show mercy at absolutely no expense
to his perfect justice. But God who is rich in mercy
for his great love wherewith he loved us, there's the reason,
even when we were dead in sins. Notice, where did that love happen?
When did that love happen? It wasn't when we turned things
around and we had made ourselves better. It was when we were dead
in sins. Hath quickened us together with Christ by grace, you're
saved. That is salvation by grace. You
were dead. You were devil worshipers. You
were fulfilling your own lusts. You were wandering away from
God as best you could, but God, for Christ's sake, out of love,
showed mercy. Salvation by grace. Go back to
your text. Let's read it again, the second
part of this. 1 Peter 5.10. says, But the God of all grace,
who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. Now, what is the call of the
Gospel? It goes something like this, this is Isaiah chapter
55 verse 1, it says, Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the
waters. And he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come
buy wine and milk without money. and without price. Now, I find
it very interesting that this verse of scripture starts with
this word, ho. What that means is, look up here and pay attention.
Every time you hear the gospel preached, you're going to hear
this, come to Christ. Come to Christ right now. Don't
wait. Don't wait to get better. Don't bring anything with you.
The only way you can exclude yourself from mercy is to try
to buy it, to bring something with you, to try to buy what
is priceless. Come with nothing but your sin, with a need, and
he will fulfill your need. But hope, pay attention to this,
don't ever let that get old. Never let that get stale. Don't
ever glance over that. You are commanded to come to
Christ right now, just as you are, and believe on him. That's
every man, woman, and child in this room, me and you, right
now. This. Now, what does it look like when
a man is cold of God? What does that look like? I'm
going to give you three things with three illustrations. Here's the first
one. You remember Lazarus, don't you? Not Lazarus, Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus, a wee little publican,
right? And he had an interest in seeing the Lord. He knew he
was gonna walk by, and that was God-given. That was by grace
that he even wanted to see the Lord. So he climbed up into a
tree, got good and high, and the Lord came to him where he
was at. And he said, Zacchaeus, what did he tell him? Come down,
for today I must abide in your house. What did Zacchaeus do?
He came down. Now, a man who's called of God
is going to take his rightful place before the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, you see this right here,
Zacchaeus, man, the Lord Jesus Christ, God, right here. This
is man's religion. The will of man, the will of
God. You've probably heard this before. All right, this is the
call of false religion in our day. God loves you, he loves
everybody, and he wants to save everybody, but he can't have
his way unless you, your will's up here, let him have his way.
If you hear the call of the gospel, the Lord's going to cause you
to come down. My will doesn't trump his will. My will isn't
even on par with his will. Well, we're going to work this
out. We're going to go through a negotiation. Now, man who's called of God takes
his rightful place at the feet, worshiping a sovereign simply
for who he is, begging for mercy. That's the first thing that happens.
You come down. My will doesn't trump his will. We're not on
par with each other. I'm at his mercy. I'm at his
will, he can save, he can pass by, he can do whatever he wants,
he's God. That's the first thing that happens. Second thing, a
man who is called of God will leave something behind. Blind
Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging.
And when he heard it was Jesus of Nazareth, he cried, Jesus,
thou son of David, have mercy on me. And the crowd said, shut
up, be quiet. He cried more, Jesus, thou son
of David. And the Lord stopped dead in his tracks. And he called
him, he said, come. What did he do before he came,
you remember? He's wearing a robe, he's wearing a beggar's garment,
right? And he's blind, and he was a poor person, it would have
been disgusting, it would have been filthy, but he couldn't see it, he was
blind. And he got up before he came, he took that robe off,
that cloak, and he cast it away, he got rid of it. A man who's
called of God is going to leave something behind. And here's
what he's gonna leave behind, any hope of a salvation based
on my filthy self-righteousness. He got rid of it. Now, I don't
want to be disrespectful to beggars, things like that, poor people,
but if you've ever been around a beggar, their cloak is disgusting,
it's filthy, it smells bad, things like that, and his would have
been no exception, but he couldn't tell because he was blind. When
the Lord called him, he could tell. This was the end of it.
He wanted nothing to do with that. He got rid of that cloak,
that covering, that covering of his own, and he came to Christ
naked and exposed. He came just as he was, knowing
he would clothe him. A man who's called to God is
gonna leave something behind. Leave behind your self-righteousness.
It will do you absolutely no good. Here's a good statement.
It will never be your sin that will keep you from Christ. It
will only be your self-righteousness. Last one. Remember Lazarus. How dead was
Lazarus? Three days dead, right? Rotting
in a tomb. The Lord came to him where he was, said, roll away
the stone. And he said, Lazarus, come forth. And you know what? A dead man
came to life, and he staggered out of that grave, and he came
to Christ. And this is the third thing a
man who's called to God is going to do. He's going to obey the command.
Lazarus was dead, but with that command, Lazarus, come out here,
came life. And with life came the obedience
to the command. Now this is what happens to the
preaching of the gospel when the Lord makes it effectual to a sinner.
He says, come forth. And that message, that effectual,
gives life. And he comes. He comes clinging
to Christ. He wants no other choice, and he's got no other
choice. But it always ends in obedience. He comes staggering
out of a grave, covered in grave clothes, but he comes clinging
to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what it looks like when
a man's called of God. Back to your text, 1 Peter 5.10.
It says, But the God of all grace,
who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after
that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish,
strengthen, settle you. Now the family, the Lord has
a family. Many things promise to this family, the greatest
of those being salvation. You're going to be saved. You have been
saved. You're not going to see death, not a spiritual death.
You're going to reside with the Lord Jesus Christ, worshiping
him forever. And you're going to put off this sin, and you're
just going to have this new man. That's promised to you. Here's
another thing that's promised to you while we're in this world.
Suffering. Suffering. Let me give you a scripture on
this. John 16.33 says, these things have I spoken unto you,
that in me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation.
but be a good cheer. I've overcome the world. What
are we going to have in this life? It's going to be tribulation. For a second, if there is anyone
here who is suffering right now, I want to give you just a few
scriptures that hopefully the Lord will comfort you with. All
right, and here's the first one. Turn to 2 Corinthians 5, or chapter
5, I'm sorry. Second Corinthians chapter five,
and look at verse 18. And all things are of God. Now let's just stop there for
a second. What all things? All things. Now, particularly
in this verse is speaking of salvation. All things are of
God. All things are of Christ. Aren't we thankful for that?
Every aspect of salvation is completely up to the work of
the Lord Jesus Christ. All things are of God. We're going to see
that. But everything in this world, even the tribulation,
even the suffering, it is of God. Now, go on reading. And
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. Now I want you to consider something
for a second. What did it take for the Father to reconcile you
back to himself? He had to take what was most
precious to him. his son, his only begotten, the
one where all his love resides, where all his favor resides,
his only begotten son, the one he loves, his prized possession,
he had to take him and he had to put him through the torture
of making this holy man your sin. He had to bear it in his
body. It's like injecting your own
child with cancer. Then he had to take him and he
had to kill him, his only begotten son. This one where all his love
reside, all his favor reside, his only begotten son. To reconcile
you, he had to make him your sin, and then he had to kill
his only begotten son. And he did that so that he could
have you. Gave up what was most precious to him. Now let me ask
you this question. This is very, very simple. I'm just doing this.
If he is willing to give up what is most precious to reconcile
you back to himself, if you are currently in the midst of trial
and tribulation, do you think he will turn his back on you
now? Not a chance. Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego got thrown in the furnace, and who was there with
them the entire time? The fourth man, the Lord Jesus Christ. And
not a hair on their head was hinged when they walked out of
there. So if he is willing to give up what is most precious
to him to have you, to reconcile you back to himself in this small
thing of this trial in this world that'll be over for too long,
he's not gonna turn his back on you. He will never leave you,
and he will never forsake you. And these are all for a purpose.
Four words are used in our text. It says to perfect, to establish,
to strengthen, and to settle you. And I think these are interesting.
That word perfect means make it as it should be. Make it as
it should be. Well, how should I be? This is
talking about maturity, maturity, spiritual maturity. A lot of
times in the scripture when it's talking about that, it's talking
about discernment, being able to enjoy and drink the milk of
the word, be able to eat the meat of the word, the weightier
things. And I want that, I do. But this is actually talking
about something different. This is the maturity it's talking about. And be ye
kind one to another. Tender-hearted, forgiving one
another even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you." When
am I going to learn to be kind to my brethren, to those around
me? It's very simple when I see how the Lord was kind to me.
He was kind to a man that was rebelling against him, that was
warring against him. He provided everything for a
man who hated him and turned his back on him. That's how I
should be kind. But you know what else I'm going
to learn to be kind? It's very simple. When I kindle a fire
at my own feet, when I make a mess of things, which I constantly
do, and I go to the Lord and say, Lord, deliver me from this
mess I made, and you see he's faithful to do it. He's kind
in the very end. Then I'll learn to be kind. Next word he uses is establish. It means to turn resolutely in
a certain direction. I'm going to use an example we
used in Sunday school. Remember Peter? After the disciples had
been through the tribulation in the boat, he said, Lord, if
it be you, let me come out of the water to you. And the Lord
said, come, come on out. And as long as Peter kept his eyes
on the Lord Jesus Christ, he walked just fine. He walked on
that water like it was nothing. But all of a sudden, the waves
start kicking up. The winds start picking up. He
gets distracted. He starts looking over here.
I bet he got pretty impressed with the fact that he was walking
on the water, and he probably started looking at his feet.
He stopped looking at Christ, and all of a sudden, what happened?
He started to sink. All of a sudden, he's in tribulation.
All of a sudden, he's in suffering. But in that moment of sinking,
in all that distress, what does he do? He cries out one of the
shortest and best prayers any man has ever played. Lord, save
me. He didn't say, Lord, here's the
19 different things you need to do to save me. He didn't try to
tell him his business. He just said, Lord, save me. I need saving.
That's what Peter needed right in that moment. He said, Lord,
save me. When he shouted out that prayer, where do you think
he was looking now? It wasn't in his feet anymore.
It wasn't in the way. He's looking the Lord dead square in the eye
at that time. The tribulation, the trial, it refocused the gaze
back to where it was supposed to be. Now, here's my point.
We were talking about this in the back earlier. Trial does
not breed faith. Faith is given in the new birth.
It comes in a new heart, in a new spirit, but it is galvanized
by trial and tribulation. It is exposed by trial and tribulation,
and it's refocused right here, refocuses the gaze back where
it's supposed to be, back on Christ. Third word is strengthen,
and it means exactly what it says it means, to make strong.
You remember when Paul had the thorn in the flesh, He went to
the Lord three times. He said, will you take this away
from me? It's interesting. The Lord didn't say, yes, I will.
He didn't say, no, I won't. He didn't give him a timeline
if he was going to take it away. You know what he said? He said,
my grace is sufficient for you. For my strength is made perfect
in your weakness. When is a man at his strongest?
Where is the strongest man on the face of the earth right now?
The strongest man on the face of the earth is not just the
man who is clinging to Christ for every aspect of his salvation.
That's a strong man, make no mistake. But if he's clinging
to Christ for every aspect of his salvation, but also relying
on Him for the next dollar that's going to come in his bank account
to pay the bills. And the man who's clinging to Christ for
everything in his salvation is lying in a hospital bed and he's
relying on the Lord for his next breath of air. and the man who's
starving and he's clinging to Christ for every aspect of his
salvation, but he's waiting on the Lord to give him that next
bite of food. The more dependent we are on the Lord for everything,
the weaker we see ourselves, and more dependent we are on
him for everything, that is when we are at our strongest. Because
when we're leaning on him for everything, that is a strong
man. And finally, the last word used
is settle. It means to be grounded to a firm foundation. If you
had to take these other three words and kind of bring them
together into one concept, what they're all talking about, it's
this, why the trouble? Why the suffering in this life?
Why is this so necessary? Everything is working together
to ground us, to sink us into Christ and to keep us there and
refocus the gaze that we would constantly be clinging to him.
That's the purpose. Now, In closing, I want to give
you this. I want to tell you how the scriptures
describe our suffering. 2 Corinthians 4.17 says, for
our light affliction, which is but for a moment. I wouldn't
take away anything that anyone is going through right now, nothing
at all. Things are very hard. The scripture calls it a light
affliction. This idea of something being light is relative, right?
So this glass of water, is it heavy or is it light? Well, it's
relative. Compared to a feather, it's heavy.
Compared to a coral, it's very light, right? Our light affliction,
what is it being compared to? It's being compared to the suffering
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what I want to look
at in closing here. Turn to Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah chapter 53, and look at
verse four. Isaiah says in verse four, surely
he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did
esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. What griefs
and sorrows of ours did he bore? This is talking about our sins.
He was made our sin. He was made to be our sin so
much that he was made guilty of that sin. That's how real
this transaction was. Was it really that real? Look
down at verse seven. He was oppressed and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter and as a sheep before his shears is dumb, so he openeth
not his mouth. From the cross, he never looked
at his father and said, Father, you know I'm just a substitute.
You know I don't really deserve this. You know I'm just dying
for someone else's sins. You know, don't hide your face
from me. This really isn't my fault. I'm just a substitute
here. He never said that. He never opened his mouth. He
never tried to justify himself. You wanna know why, folks? Because
he was made guilty. Because that's how real the transaction of our
sin being taken out of us and put in him really was. And there's
no double jeopardy with God, which means if he already suffered
for sin, that means I don't have any. That means there's no punishment
for me to bear. Now, look at the effects of this.
Look at verse five, but he was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our inequities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him and with his stripes, we, what's that word? Are presently
right now healed. This is the effects of his suffering
when he went to the cross and he suffered under the weight
of God's wrath. When he was punished, when he
died, this is what happened. We were healed. Past tense, that
means there's nothing left for us to do. There's no works left
to perform. There is nothing right now you
believe or need to do. You can rest in Christ. And so
somebody says, are you sure? Are you 100% sure of this? Are
you telling me I can walk out of this place and I can rest
in Christ and trust him? Are you telling me that God is
completely and utterly satisfied with the work of Jesus Christ
alone? Please look at verse 11. He shall see of the travail of
his soul and shall be," what's that word? Satisfied. God is 100% satisfied with the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That means he is 100% satisfied
with the family. And because of his work, because
of his suffering, the Father is to us always in every instance
the God of all grace. I'm gonna leave you all there. Pleasure being with you.