Courtney picked out the songs
today. Courtney's filling in for Katie, as you can probably
tell. Very nice, by the way. She just
reached out and offered. Coming back into this building
and studying this week, I've thought about Joe a lot.
And I imagine we all do. I'm going to hold it together. But scripture, I came across,
and it's actually not what I'm using in the sermon today, but
I wanted to read it because it made me think of Joe. And this
song is perfect in the way that it works with this scripture. It's from 1 Corinthians 13, verse
12. It says, And they say poor reflection,
back then mirrors were hard to see. They were not like the mirrors
we have now. So the reflection was poor. It
was a rough, veiled outline of what you actually looked like.
So now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror. Then we shall
see face to face. Now I know in part. Then I shall
know fully. even as I am fully known. So we want more about Jesus all
the time. Probably not as often as we should,
but there are times when we go through it and we're like, we
just need more, more. And then I think of Joe. He knows
Christ fully. As fully as Christ has always
known him. Joe doesn't have to sing more
about Jesus anymore. It says more of his saving fullness. Joe has fully experienced that
saving fullness and is experiencing it every moment like it's brand
new. And it's just such a wonderful
thought and so uplifting both in the way that we love Joe and
I love to think of him embracing our Savior and being embraced
by our Savior, but also in the fact that that's what's in store
for his people. That's what's in store for us.
Someday we won't have to sing more about Jesus anymore, and
that's only because of what he has done for us. And at some
point, we will fully understand and fully grasp that, just like
Joe is right now. So good song choice. I'm going to read now from Ephesians
2, the first 10 verses. Ephesians 2, the first 10 verses. As for you, you are dead in your
transgressions and sins. in which you used to live when
you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the
kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who
are disobedient. All of us also lived among them,
and at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature
and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were
by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love
for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even
when we were dead in our transgressions. It is by grace you have been
saved. And God raised us up with Christ,
seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order
that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches
of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been
saved through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is a
gift from God, not by works, so that no one can boast. For
we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,
which God prepared in advance for us to do. Now you can take
out your course books. Turn them to number 26, longing
to see him. Number 26, and we'll stand as
we sing. great longing in these days of
my sojourn on earth. It is soon to see my Savior's
face and praise His matchless worth. with mercy filled, my soul now
longs to see. They looked on me, and looking
still, no fault in me perceives. Why such a gracious Lord to but praise the day when I shall
see his face. He's coming back, his promise
says, to claim his cherished pride. prepared a place in heaven by
his side. That day shall open wide the
skies, dead shall rise and he shall
take us home. If I live till you come at last
or someday lie entombed, this one clings just of all Okay, we'll be staying in Ephesians
for a while. So if you want to go back to
Ephesians chapter 2, the first 10 verses. So I was thinking
about Joe a lot in the last few days. I assume what I've been dealing
with is probably something all of us have been dealing with
or something very similar. Everything has been so unusual
since Joe passed. Obviously, the first three, four
weeks of it are just a shock. And then the chaos of what happened
to this town and to many of your lives. And then dealing with
the building and finding a new place to worship in the meantime
and getting the building back in shape So we can be here today.
It's it's just been a lot of unusual circumstances which for
me Maybe I'm alone. Maybe I'm not it has it's made
it really hard for to really Grasp the fact that Joe's gone
So coming back in this building this morning is super exciting
and I love it, but at the same time it's really odd. It's really
weird. I want him to be here. I'm glad he's not, but I do wish
he was, in a selfish way. I miss him. A lot. So as I was thinking about all
that, sorry, already, I was thinking about the first time he asked
me to fill in for him. I was terrified, first of all.
Also very concerned. It's not something I'd ever done.
Not something I ever, I can't say I hadn't thought about doing
it, but I'd never really seen myself doing it. And it just,
it brought up a lot of memories of that time. as I was studying
this week, of that first time that he had approached me about
coming up here, and all the fears that came with it, and all the
concern that came with it, and all the worry, to be honest,
that came with it in my heart, just as a person. And of course, what I was concerned
about was me. which generally isn't a good
idea to be concerned about yourself, to be looking at yourself in
any way, and that's kind of what we're going to be talking about
again today. It's not an uncommon topic for us. We have one focus
that we need to keep, and anytime we're not focused on Christ, good things don't happen. So
I just remembered that feeling of being so concerned and so
overwhelmed at the idea of, could I screw this up? Am I going to
make a fool of myself? What if no one likes it? You
know, just totally worldly, silly things that are just our nature. And it's a great example and
a great picture of how we make a consistent effort to put ourselves
in the picture. To force ourselves into things
of God. If God wants to get his message
across to you guys today, I've got news for you. I can't stop
him. If he has a plan to make some moves today, and however
he does that, if he's got a plan to reach someone in a way that
he wants to, I cannot stop that. I can't turn it. I can't slow
it down. We can't affect God's will. We
are only a part of it. And that's a comfort. That's
a comfort in times of concern like that. It's a comfort in
times of what we've been dealing with the last three months, loss
and chaos. What a comfort to know that the
Lord's will happens exactly as it's supposed to, no matter what
we're dealing with. We don't understand it. We never
will. Maybe someday we will. I'm not
sure if at that point we'll care. But right now, we don't understand
the way that God's mind works. We can't. That would be, well,
I think Joe said once, that would be like trying to teach English
to a dog. We just can't. We can't fathom the things of
God, but we do know enough and we've been shown enough to trust
the things of God, to know that they're right and that they're
good, even when they're hard and they're not pleasant. But yet we still want to work
ourselves in there on a regular basis. It is our absolute nature
to want to be a part of this. An example of how we so desperately
try to force ourselves into everything, including the things of God,
including our own salvation. And that's the number one, right?
That's where human nature wants to be involved the most, in the
salvation of our souls. Like I said, if God wanted to
speak to someone today, my not-as-Joe eloquent verbal delivery isn't
going to affect that. My lack of experience can't get
in the way of God's plan. As a matter of fact, it's pretty
audacious, the audacity for someone to even assume that you could. Again, friends, we can't affect
God's will. We are only a part of it. But we try. And we try the most when it comes
to salvation. Our salvation As I last time
I preached, it's a very simple, simple formula. I mean, there's
only one answer to the question, and it's Christ. I mean, it doesn't
get more simple than one thing. We talked about that last time. But yet we so badly want to be
a part of that, but we cannot be a part of salvation other
than to be the subject of it. Right? That's all we are. It's the only role we play in
the salvation of our souls is that we are the subject of it.
We don't have any role in the doing, the creating, the sacrifice
needed. None of those things have anything
to do with us. We are only the one being saved. We are only
the subject of salvation. in the equation of salvation,
in the process of Christ satisfying the judgment of God, because
that's exactly what he did, of Christ paying the price that
was absolutely required because of all of our sins, we are only
the subject. We had no part in the payment.
All we bring is the sin that needs to be forgiven. Think about
that. That's the part we play. In the salvation of God's people,
the only aspect that we bring is the necessity of Christ to
pay for our sins on the cross. How can we ever boast in anything
when all we do is bring the sin that nailed him to the cross? Every part of us All we bring
is need. All we bring is a lifeless, lost
soul. If you turn back to Ephesians
chapter two and go to verse four, it says, but because of his great
love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ
even when we were dead in our transgressions. It is by grace
that you have been saved. Grace. Unmerited favor. Undeserved in every way. And
it's not a coincidence that right before it talks about grace,
which is completely undeserved, it mentions that we are dead.
I mean, there's no better example or symbol of what we are besides
saying dead. Because in any other description,
no matter how weak or feeble, there's a chance that you could
help yourself. A dead man can do nothing. A sick man, no matter
how sick they are, they've got a chance. We have no chance on
our own. We are dead in our transgressions
and sin. What can a dead man do besides
remain dead? The Bible is very simple and
clear. We are dead. Every part of us alone is dead,
lifeless. What can we possibly do for ourselves?
A dead, empty body can do absolutely nothing. But yet, so often, there
are two directions to go from here, and one of them is that
we continue to boast, and we see that a lot in the world.
And I don't want to say in the world, we're just as guilty of
it. We might not be as verbal, We
might not be as outspoken about our boasting, but it definitely
exists. We boast about what we do, the
things we do. We might not say it to people,
but we think it. We boast in who we are. I think you're a
pretty good person. Talked to somebody the other
day, and actually it was a long time ago, but I was talking to
Katie about it. A co-worker of mine many, many years ago, we
were talking about the things of God, and he just said, well,
I think I'm more good than bad. I think I do more good than I
do bad. I think if you put me on a scale,
the good's gonna outweigh the bad, and that's just absolutely
untrue. And God's people understand that,
but that doesn't stop us from thinking those things. If we're
honest with ourselves, There are times when we are fully boasting
in who we are and what we do. We might not, again, we might
not be saying it to somebody, and sometimes we would, sometimes
we might, but it's part of us. We can't escape that. So inwardly, we're boasting,
but how can we be boasting? How can we, to boast means to
be self-satisfied, to have something worth praise. That's what boasting
means. Who can be praised for being
dead? Who can be praised for being
lost? It's really easy to get lost. Luke 19.10, you don't have to
turn there, it says, for the Son of Man came to seek and save
who was lost. Can we boast in the fact that
we got lost? That we don't know where we're
going, we don't know how we got there, and we don't have any
idea where we're gonna head from here. How can we boast in being
lost? If you wanna turn to Luke 15,
we'll start in verse three. Luke 15, verse three. Very well-known
parable. Then Jesus told them this parable,
suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.
Does he not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the
lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully
puts it on his shoulders and goes home. When he calls his
friends and neighbors together and says, rejoice with me, I
have found my lost sheep, I tell you that in the same way there
will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than
over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent. First
of all, those 99 are not righteous. Those people, what they're talking
about there is those who assume that they are. Any human being
that thinks they're righteous is wrong. But many of them don't
realize that. But the lost sheep, Again, how
do we boast in being lost, in being the one that needs to be
rescued? Christ willfully, and this is the part that was jarring
to me when I read this, Christ willfully and joyfully carried
out his Father's will. It says that. It says when he
finds the sheep, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and
goes home. Knowing this, the joyful part,
Christ carried out the will of his father, and the symbolism
there when he picks up that sheep and carries them home is what
Christ did for his people. The symbolism there is that that
sheep is lost and had to be saved, and in order for God's people
to be saved, Christ had to suffer Unimaginably, physically, and
spiritually, in a way we can't understand, on the cross at the
hands of men and the hands of God. And it says he joyfully
picked up that sheep and carried him home. Joyfully carried out the will
of his father, even the will of death on the cross. Not begrudgingly. Joyfully, he gave up everything
to save the lost sheep. And again, how can we possibly
boast in anything when all we are is a lost sheep? Sorry, I forgot, lost my spot
here. I know I got it in here somewhere.
There's another part I wanted to mention there and I don't
see it. All right. Well, the idea is,
like, what can a sheep do on its own? A sheep on its own is
guaranteed to perish. A sheep gets lost in the wilderness,
it has no shot. It's going to die. It has no
way to save itself and that is a perfect example of God's people.
We have nothing and we need him to come and pick us up and carry
us home. He doesn't even lead the sheep
home. He doesn't say, hey I found you, come on. Doesn't whistle
at us and expect us to walk home. We can't even do that for ourselves.
So he actually finds the lost sheep, puts him on his shoulder
and carries him home. And that's exactly what we need
in the situation that we found ourselves in, in death and transgressions
and sins. We can't save ourselves in any
way. We can't have Christ find us
and say, all right, take a few steps my direction. We're dead. He has to throw us on his shoulder
on the way to the cross. Now there's another side to this
coin. Once we've been made to believe, if we aren't boasting
in ourselves, we're at the other end of the spectrum, which is
also very common. We have become painfully aware of our sin. So boasting on one end and burdened
on the other. Once we are shown the truth,
we see ourselves in a much brighter light. And with that comes guilt. And followed by that guilt is
more sin. And you see it and become more
aware of it that time as well, so that brings more guilt. And
you become burdened by it. And that is something we will
never escape until we finally let go of this world. but in the very same way that
boasting makes no sense because we are nothing more than the
subject of Christ's purchased salvation. Again, we are just
the subject. We are the sinners. So boasting
makes no sense. Wallowing in our guilt is just
as pointless. Looking at ourselves in a boastful
way or in a sin-burdened way. Both of them are just still looking
at ourselves, which gets us nowhere. We are told to look at Him and
live, and it's repeated so often in songs and scripture, and it's
so vital and absolutely important and yet so simple to look to
Christ to live. Turn to Numbers 21.8. Another very well-known piece
of scripture about the bronze snake, but it's just, it's such
a great picture of what look and live means. So, Numbers 21, and we'll start
in verse 8. The Lord said to Moses, make
a snake, put it up on a pole. Anyone who is bitten can look
at it and live. So Moses made a bronze snake, put it up on
the pole, and then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked
at the bronze snake, he lived. It is incredibly simple in the
way that that's written down. There's very few, there's no
explanation. There doesn't have to be, it's
truly that simple. Look and live. Don't look at
yourselves, whether that's in a boastful, or a burdened way. Neither will do you any good.
You are one of these people, these Israelites that have been
bitten by a venomous snake. You've been complaining to God
about God and about Moses to the point where God said, I am
sending venomous snakes among you all and they're all being
bitten and thousands and thousands are dying and you're one of them.
That is another symbolic picture of where humanity is after the
curse. We're dying. We're slowly marching to the
true and real death of spiritual death. That's the direction all
humanity is headed, except for God's people. So don't look at
yourselves. You've been bitten by a venomous
snake, heading towards spiritual death with no hope on your own. What can looking to yourself
in that situation do anything for you? How can that help? Whether
that's with pride, being boastful, or with the burden of sin, how
can either one help your situation? You're laying there dying of
a snake bite. Are you gonna look over at your buddy and say, well,
I mean, yeah, I complained quite a bit about Moses, but not as
much as so-and-so. What is that gonna do for your
situation? You're still bitten by a snake and you're still dying. You could boast. I pray every
day on schedule all the time. I've done it for years. I'm the
best prayer you've ever met. Still dying. How did that help? Or you could go the other way,
and you could go into the burdened aspect of things, where you're,
woe is me, I complained against my God, now he sent these snakes,
I've been bitten, and I'm dying, and man, I failed again. Yes, what is doing that help? You're still dying. Once again, I complained against
my God, even though I promised I wouldn't do that, because they
had done that over the many years. Israel failed and failed and
failed as they went through the wilderness. And now they here
are again, doing the exact same thing, and I would imagine some
of them said to themselves, man, once again, I swore I would not
complain against God and complain against Moses, and I did it again,
and now look. Snakes are here, and I've been
bitten, and I'm dying. That's us focused on the burden
of sin. We fail all the time. You're laying there, perishing,
dying. What is focusing on that do? Nothing. You're still dying. I'm so sinful. I see it in everything
I do. That may be true. Focusing on
it. Still dying. Boasting or burdened. Looking
at yourself. You are still on your way to
spiritual death. But the answer is simple. I mean,
it couldn't be more simple. It's three words. Look and live. looking to Christ, looking to
the only true hope, the only one. There was only one option
for these people. It wasn't, you can look at a
snake, or go find a medic, or make a salve out of these leaves,
rub it on, nothing. They had one option, there was
one hope, and that's what we have, one singular hope. Looking to that hope is guaranteed
salvation. It said that when anyone was
bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived. Period. There was no if, or when,
or any type of addition whatsoever. If they looked, they lived. And that's exactly the truth
with looking to Christ. If you look to Him, you will
live. You will be saved. Not most, doesn't say that either.
It says most of you look, If all of you look, most of you
will be saved. A couple of them, eh, pretty sick. Everyone that
looked lived. Not anyone who crawled a little
closer so that you could make sure you could see it pretty
well, it didn't matter. Doesn't matter how clear your
vision is, doesn't matter how close or far you are, you look
to Christ and you live. He promises that. If He promises
it, it's true. The creator of the entire world,
the Son of God promises this. It's a guarantee. So we're, we've
got pictures of being dead here. We've got pictures of being lost.
We've got pictures of being bitten. But then you go back to Ephesians
that I read earlier, Ephesians chapter two. Oop, that's the wrong spot. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 6.
One sentence, three mentions of Christ. It is all truly about him. I
saw something that Bernie put on Facebook yesterday. I screenshotted
it here. It's a quote from Joe, and it's
just perfectly an example of what I'm talking about right
here. It says, do you know why we preach only Christ? If we
start preaching anything else, we'll start to add that to Christ.
That's why Christ is all there is. Christ is the sole, the singular
object of the faith of God's people. He is the sole, singular option
of our faith. He is who we look to, and the
guaranteed victory in Him is just there. It's a guarantee. If you look to Christ, and you
need to, But if you do, he will never
turn you away. So again, as God raised us up
with Christ to be seated with Christ in the heavenly realms
in Christ. So first, we're dead. The trend
here, of course, is the fact that all of these things end
with Christ, in Christ, with Him. We are nothing, truly nothing,
and have no hope without Him. If God looks at us and sees anything
besides Christ, we will not be accepted. That's the truth. God demands perfection. God demands righteousness. And there was only one righteous
man. When God looks at his people,
he sees them in Christ. Righteous. Deserving of all of
his love and all of his blessings. All of them. Everything about
Christ pleases God. Everything. Every aspect of Christ
pleases God. And thankfully, God has played
out his perfect will to place us in Christ. It's hard to fathom the fact
that we could be pleasing to God, but we are. Fully. Because we're in Christ. We're just as pleasing to him
as Christ is, and Christ pleases him in every way. If you go to 2 Corinthians 5
verses 2, or verses 21, sorry. 2 Corinthians 5 verses 21. God made him who had no sin to
be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness
of God. Christ took our sin, gave us
his righteousness, so that with that we can approach our Father
with absolute confidence. No burdens. Nothing to hold us
back. We are in Christ. Us approaching
Him is as Christ approaching Him. That's how accepted we are.
That's how confident we can come to Him with the name of Christ
on our lips. We have nothing to be burdened
by. Our sins are gone. We had no righteousness of our
own. But we've been gifted the righteousness
of the one and only Jesus Christ. I mean, there are times when
that really, that truth hits home harder than others, but
man, there's a reason this is called the good news. It is the
good news. It's not some. It's not a little
bit of a bigger piece of good news. It is the only real true
good news. We are dead, lost, snake bitten. Have no hope on our own. But
Christ found that sheep, picked him up, carried him home. We
will be carried home as well. dead, lost, and snake-bitten. And in that situation, all of
our sins, everything that we deserved because of those sins,
was taken away from us. And in that place, we were given
the most perfect righteousness of Christ. It's a very simple formula. We'd
like to include ourselves as much as we can, but there is
no way to do that. Again, we are only the subject
of salvation. And what a glorious truth that
is. Our Father, we come to you with,
again, great thanks, so much to be thankful for. Our brethren, this book, the truth that you've
shown us and continue to show us. But most of all, Lord, we
thank you so much to show us exactly what we are in our natural
standing and how much we need you. But then in that same breath,
you have provided everything we need in Christ. We thank you for that more than
anything. Let me pray this in Jesus' name, amen. You take out your chorus books
and turn them to number 12. He surrendered all, number 12
in the chorus books, and we'll stand together as we sing.