Would you turn in your Bibles
back to those two scriptures that Brad read to us? The first one, and hold your
finger at each one of those. The first one we want to look
at is in Matthew chapter 7. And that began where Brad read
it at verse 13. So we'll go there first. And
then we will also add to that what we read in Luke 18. I've entitled today's message,
Two Men. And you'll see the reason for
that. In the scripture we just read, in the last one, in Luke
18, there were two men, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. In Matthew chapter 7, hold on. In Matthew chapter 7, the Lord
Jesus Christ is speaking, and he begins by saying, enter ye
in, at verse 13, enter ye in at the straight gate. Now, it
doesn't mean straight like an arrow or like a ruler. It means
small and compressed, hard to find and hard to fit through,
narrow. So he says, enter in at that
gate. And he compares that, he said, for wide is the gate. So
there's two gates. Two men, two gates. Broad is
the way that leads to destruction, and many there be that go in
thereat. So many. The Lord Jesus Christ
is telling us the way things are. Many go in the wide gate,
and that leads to destruction. Verse 14, because straight is
the gate and narrow is the way, which leads to life and few there
be that find it. Few. So these are two different
ways, two different gates. And you can see that this one
in verse 14, the narrow one leads to life. The wide one leads to
destruction. And so you can see that this
is a gate of life. In the account in the book of
Luke, he says it's the way of salvation. And so then he goes
on in verse 15, beware of false prophets which come to you in
sheep's clothing. They look like sheep, but they're
not sheep, they're actually wolves. But inwardly they are ravening
wolves, you shall know them by their fruits. So now he's gonna
do another comparison. Do men gather grapes of thorns
or figs of thistles? So the two, there's grapes and
figs and there's thorns and thistles. Even so every good tree bringeth
forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth
evil fruit. That's pretty strong language,
isn't it? A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit. Neither
can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. So the narrow way
is narrow. It's the way of life, the way
of salvation. It's the entrance into heaven.
The broad way is wide. Many go there, and it leads to
destruction and death. And it's like these two different
kinds of fruit, these trees. One is good, it bears good fruit
only. The other one is bad, it only
bears bad fruit. Every tree that brings not forth
good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore, by
their fruits you shall know them. So what we see here is that the
Lord Jesus, who is God, who was sent by God to make God known
to us and to reveal the truth to us, in fact, to reveal the
gospel of salvation to us, he uses two things throughout scripture. He always sets two things side
by side. In Luke 18, it was two men. Here,
it's two ways, two trees, two fruits. He talks about false
prophets. And then he talks about those
who bring forth good fruit. Now, I want to emphasize this
today because this is the way God teaches us. He shows us positively
what the way is, and negatively he shows us what the way is by
contrast. All of scripture is written in
this way. When you read scripture, you'll
find it to be true. For example, remember in Luke
15, There was two sons. One was a prodigal son. He wasted
his father's living. The other was the elder brother.
He was a good, obedient son who was always doing what his father
said. But in the heart of those two
were different ways of seeing their father. One of them represents
all those who are saved by God's grace. The other one represents
all those who think they deserve something from their father and
they have no joy in the salvation of his little brother. And you
can see this throughout scripture. There was the man who was on
his way from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among thieves, remember?
And a priest and Levite came by, they passed by. But the Samaritan
stopped, took care of him. So you see the two set side by
side. And you can see this throughout scripture. Everything in scripture,
according to God's, what pleases the Lord, he has revealed this
to us in order to show us something very important, to answer very
important questions. In fact, I almost entitled this
message, Ultimate Questions. Because God answers, he raises
the questions we ought to be asking. And then he answers them
and he uses these two things set side by side in contrast
to teach us the right. Now in Matthew chapter 7, I want
to look at this with you because in the verses from 21 to 23,
we're going to see here the negative. And it helps us to see the negative.
When we're born, we're born believing the negative. We're born not
understanding the right. We're born understanding the
error. We think that way. Naturally, we think wrong. God has to change the way we
naturally believe. He has to turn us. He has to
change our minds. He has to reveal to us things
we could not know unless he made them known. That's the surprising thing to
us is that we just don't naturally know what we ought to know. Now
God has shown us some things. He's shown us the things about
himself, his power, his eternal Godhead, his eternal power and
Godhead. And we know those innately, all
men do. And all men suppress and put
that aside. We don't like to retain the truth. We don't like to retain God in
our knowledge. That's what we naturally do.
And so we gravitate and we naturally fall into the rut of bad thinking,
falsehood, error. And so this first example we're
gonna see here in scripture, when we compare these two things,
as I've entitled the message Two Men, we're gonna see in the
negative what doesn't work. The wrong way, the wide way,
the way to destruction and death and ruin. We're gonna see trees
that bring forth only bad fruit. And we're gonna see that. Listen
to this, and it's helpful that we see it this way. Because this
is the way we naturally think. We have to be changed from this
radically to think the other way, to look at life and to think
of God and ourselves in an entirely new light. Notice here in Matthew
chapter 7, and the scripture is written this way. The scripture
is written this way throughout the Bible. If you read it, God
is showing us what we are naturally, our wrong thinking, our wrong
way. And then he uses that to show
us our utter ruin and helplessness in our sin in order that he might
show us the right way. In Proverbs chapter 14 and verse
12 it says, there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but
the ends thereof are death, the way of death. This just seems
right to us. If you ask anybody, Ask anybody
on the street, anybody in the world, in the news, in the job,
wherever you are, naturally, they're going to answer the wrong
way. And that's a fearful thing. Because
now, what we're gonna see in verses 21 through 23 is Jesus
Christ, the Lord of all, the Son of God, who knows the hearts,
searches and knows the hearts of all men, who is himself the
Word of God, He's going to tell us about what will happen. He's telling us future history
can't be changed. It will not be changed. And this
is what he says. Not everyone that saith to me,
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. He's talking
about entrance into heaven. He's the one who judges all men. And he's telling you what's going
to happen. Not everyone who says to him,
Lord, Lord. Now we know that in scripture, it says that no one can say that
Jesus is Lord except by the Spirit of God. But here's some men who
are saying, Lord, Lord. What's wrong with what they're
saying here? Is there something wrong by saying, Lord, Lord? In Matthew chapter 12, if you
wanna flip over to that scripture in Matthew chapter 12, we're
gonna see something a little bit expanded here about this
fruit and what he's talking about where he says, trees bring forth
either bad or good fruit. Help us to understand what they
meant when they said, Lord, Lord. Matthew chapter 12 and verse
33, either make the tree good and his fruit good, or else make
the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt, for the tree is known
by his fruit. Oh, generation of vipers. Now
he's talking about men, but he's calling them poisonous snakes,
vipers. How can you, being evil, speak
good things? Remember what we just read, a
bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit. Here he says the same
thing. You generation of poisonous snakes, how can you being evil
speak good things? For out of the abundance of the
heart, the mouth speaks. When we stand before the Lord
Jesus Christ, we're gonna say something. We're gonna have to
give an account. These men were standing there.
in Matthew 7, and Jesus says here in verse 34 that everyone,
when they speak, whether they realize it or not, they're going
to say what's inside of them, what they really think. Last
week we saw in Matthew 25 that the man of the three servants
who had the talents, the last one, he said, the reason I hid
my talent in the earth is because I knew you were a hard man. You take up what you didn't lay
down, you reap what you didn't sow. And so I hid it, I was afraid. He spoke what he was thinking,
what was in his heart. And then back in Matthew 12,
again in verse 35, he goes on, he says, a good man out of the
good treasure of the heart brings forth good things. And an evil
man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But
I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they
shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by your
words thou shalt be justified, and by your words you shall be
condemned. Why? Because your words are revealing
your heart. And it's what's going on in the
heart that matters. In Proverbs chapter 4, it says,
my son, keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it
are the issues of life. And here the Lord is saying,
a good tree, a good heart, cannot bring forth bad fruit. Because
what? In the heart, God has put something
there in his heart, and he's going to speak what is right.
He's going to say what he believes. And because it's a good heart,
then he believes the truth. But here, these people in Matthew
7, verse 21, they say, Lord, Lord. They're speaking out of
the abundance of their heart. But what is their heart saying?
Their mouth says, Lord, Lord. What is their heart saying? He
goes on in Matthew 7, verse 21. Not everyone that says to me,
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. There
you are. I heard someone say recently
that Charles Spurgeon once said, if I was standing at the very
door of heaven and I had my foot on the very threshold of heaven,
and you know what a threshold is, when you walk through a door,
they put a strip of wood down so that when you walk on it,
you step on that threshold, it's the crossing point. Once you're
past the threshold, you're in. And Charles Spurgeon said, if
I was standing on the very threshold of heaven and the last step was
left up to me, I would fail to enter heaven. And you know why? Because we cannot of ourselves
take one step to get into heaven. Our own works, anything that's
of us, anything we do is sin, and God cannot accept it. It
surprises me that men have such a low view, and I talk about
men, I'm talking about myself, we have such a low view of God. We do, naturally. Men have a
very low opinion of God. Why do you say that? We think
for what we are in ourselves or what we've done, God can accept
them. That in his presence, in the
glory of God's presence, he can allow, he can accept and look
to something from us. That's a low opinion of God.
And as I was thinking about that this week, I realized there's
only one thing that God can accept in the glory of his presence,
in his holiness. And you know what that is? His
own work. His own work, right? It was when
he created the world that he looked on his own work and said,
that is very good. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
was baptized by John in Matthew chapter 3, he says, this is my
beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. And then in Matthew
17, later on, when Elijah and Moses were with John, Peter,
James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration, and the father
himself spoke from heaven, he said, this is my beloved son. And then what did he say? Hear
him. Remember? Hear him, there's only
one who is accepted in God's presence in the presence of his
glory, the Son of God in our nature, because he did the will
and work of God. Now, that's kind of an aside
here, but these men came into the presence of the Lord Jesus
Christ as the judge of all. And in his presence, they said
to him, Lord, Lord. What were they asking? They wanted
to get in to the kingdom of heaven, didn't they? And what did they
say in order to get in? Well, first, they very respectfully
spoke to the Lord Jesus as their Lord. Lord, Lord. But what were they thinking in
their heart? Well, it goes on, he says, Not everyone that says
to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he
that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. So now we
have a big question to answer. What does he mean, he that doeth
the will of my Father which is in heaven? Verse 22 first, he
says, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, notice,
have we not prophesied in thy name? That means preaching. That's
what we're doing right now. They were teachers. They were
preachers. These were the leaders. These
were the people who stood up as the authority. These were
the men who were being followed. These were the men who professed
to know the way, the straight and narrow way. Haven't we done that? And we
did it in your name. We did it in your name. And in thy name, we cast out
devils. And in thy name, we did many
wonderful works. They considered what they did
as works done in Christ's name There were many of them and they
were all wonderful. So what happens now? Jesus said,
only those who do the will of my Father shall enter the kingdom
of heaven. And notice what Jesus says when
they said, we're teachers, we're preachers, we're calling you
Lord. We say Lord, Lord, it's right
on our lips. We also cast out devils and we
did many works and they were all wonderful in your name. Is
that the will of God? What they were saying and what
they were thinking? Notice he says in verse 23, then
I will profess to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you
that work iniquity. How could it be iniquity if they
were teaching and preaching and casting out devils and doing
many wonderful works? Isn't that the will of God? No,
it must not be, because they didn't enter. He told them to
depart. So whatever they did, it wasn't
the will of God. But notice the attitude that
they had here, because the attitude is everything. You've probably
heard that, son, attitude is everything. And it's true. What were they thinking? What
was going on in their head, in their mind, in their heart? Well,
what was going on here is that they were calling out to the
Lord. They were calling on the Lord
Jesus Christ with a view to themselves. They were asking him to look
to them. to consider and recognize and
approve of them because of what they did. Does that clear here? They called his attention to
their work. They asked him to give them favor
and to reward them for what they did. They thought of themselves
in the presence of Christ, and they promoted themselves in His
presence. They came to the Lord Jesus Christ
by the broad way, the way we naturally think, the way that
is wrong, the way that is not doing the will of His Father,
which is in heaven. And the result is everything
that they did was a work of sin. All of the good that they thought
they had done was only sin. Now that seems like a very difficult
and narrow way then. If they were not accepted, If
they weren't accepted, if you were a follower of these men,
and how many times have we heard teachers or preachers in the
course of our own life who said things that sounded good and
later we found out were wrong. Think about if God left you in
that condition where you were following that false doctrine
and that heresy. along the broad way, and you
heard these men give their defense in the presence of Christ in
glory, and you were standing back waiting to be called to
give your own account. And you heard them give their
defense to try to justify themselves and to gain favor from Christ,
actually to gain entrance into heaven because of what they did,
what they said, and the works that they performed. and they
were sent out and told to depart, how would you feel being one
of their followers? Would you say, what have I got
to say now? How am I gonna answer the Lord
Jesus Christ, my judge? You wouldn't have an answer,
would you? You would not have an answer. The fact of the matter
is, Scripture reveals that none of us can answer God, our judge. Until we realize that, we will
not find the narrow way. It is a painful thing to know.
I have no answer to give for myself. But this is the very
beginning of wisdom. And so these men were asking
the Lord Jesus Christ to recognize them. There was another man in
scripture. His name was Cain, and he had
a brother named Abel. Do you remember Cain and Abel?
And Cain and Abel are two other men. It says in Genesis chapter
4, it speaks about Cain and Abel. And it says in verse three, in
the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the
fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord. And Abel, he also
brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And I'm gonna read, I don't normally
do this, but I'm gonna read from another translation. It's called
the literal translation. And this is what it says next,
and Jehovah, very carefully, Jehovah looked to Abel and to
his offering, and he did not look to Cain and to his offering. Here's Cain over there, you can
see him. Like the prophets of Baal, they put up their altar,
they put their sacrifices on it, they put wood under it, and
they weren't supposed to put fire there. They started jumping
up and down and cutting themselves and crying out to their idol
God and nothing happened. God didn't hear them. But Abel
has taken a lamb. There's life in the lamb. The
life of that lamb was given, its blood was shed, and he brought
that lamb, its life from God, given according to God's instruction
to point to the Lamb of God, God would provide, God would
offer, and God would accept. And Abel took his lamb and he
offered it up, knowing The only way that God could accept him
is to look to his offering and accept his offering. And it says,
Jehovah looked to Abel and to his offering, and he did not
look to Cain and to his offering. Cain came with the fruit from
the cursed ground, having labored from a cursed heart. With the
attitude that God will respect me, he will look to me because
I'm bringing to him what is good in my eyes. And he wants God
to give him what he deserves. He wants God to reward him for
his labors. And God will not even look to
him or to his offering because it was nothing but sin. And there's no righteousness
in anything we can bring to God. So now look with me at Romans
chapter four, before we go to Luke. In Romans chapter four,
he says this. This sums it up. God does this
throughout scripture. He's gonna bring it to a head
here in verse four of Romans chapter four. To him that worketh,
is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. If you try
to do something to earn God's favor, God will reward you, but
it'll only be increasing your debt. He's going to pay you back,
but He's going to pay you back because you owe Him and you cannot
pay. You think that what you've brought
earns you a reward, but in fact it earns you the destruction,
the words of Christ. Depart from me, you workers of
iniquity. But notice now, here we have
the negative first. Now listen to the positive. But
to him that worketh not, he himself does nothing in order to make
himself presentable to God. God can accept nothing from us.
He can't accept us and He can't accept our offering. He will
not look to us, He will not look to our offering, but believeth
on Him that justifieth the ungodly, His faith is counted for righteousness.
His faith is not in Himself. It's in the Lord Jesus Christ,
His righteousness. He believes on God who provided
Him, God who required Him, and God who accepted Him. That's
what he, he looks to Christ, and God looks to that sacrifice. He required, he provided, he
accepted, and then he looks to the one who brings it in faith,
looking to Christ as his everything, not thinking anything of himself,
but finding his all in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Lord looks
to him. Because of the sacrifice, And
now look at Luke chapter 18. In Luke chapter 18. The same thing is done. Scripture
is just setting these two ways, these two fruits, these two trees,
these two kinds of people side by side, what we are by nature,
what we have to be turned from, and teaching us where our salvation
lies, the narrow way. How we can answer God. How can
we answer God? Notice here in Luke 18, where
Brad just read, Jesus spake this parable to certain which trusted
in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. They trusted, but their trust
was in themselves. What did they think of themselves?
I'm good enough. and they despised others. That's
what we think when we have a self-righteousness. When we have a righteousness
of our own, we look down on others. Two men went up to the temple
to pray, the one a Pharisee, the other a publican. In other
words, the one an outwardly righteous, law-keeping man, one that everyone
could admire, one who had the praise of men. In this life,
he was impeccable. He's going to go on and catalog
everything for us in case we're still in the dark about his goodness,
at least his self-goodness. The Pharisee stood. He didn't
sit. He didn't bow down. He stood
up. And he prayed thus with himself because God wasn't in his prayers.
He prayed out of his own heart. I thank thee. What a schmooze. He's trying to do with those
in Matthew 7, 21. Lord, Lord, look at me. I need your recognition. Show
me. Come on, look to me now. I have
something important to say. I'm going to give you thanks.
I know that's the right thing to say. I've got to say the right
thing all the time. I thank thee, and what is he thinking? That
I am not as other men are. That's not true. That is not true. There's none
righteous, no, not one. There's none that understandeth.
There's none that seeketh after God. They're all together become
unprofitable. There's none that doeth good,
no, not one. Out of the heart, Jesus says,
comes everything which defiles a man. There's not one good among
all men on the earth. Out of the heart, the heart of
man is deceitful above all things. Who can know it? It is desperately
wicked. Jeremiah 17 verse nine. The Lord
looked down from heaven and he says that every imagination,
every imagination of the thoughts of man was only evil continually
from his youth. And yet he prays, I thank you,
I'm not like other man. This man was blind. He was utterly
blind. He did not know one speck of
truth. Because he didn't know himself
and he didn't know God. He did not know God and God didn't
know him. He didn't know him as Jesus said,
I knew you not, I've never known you. He said, I thank you. I'm not like other men. Extortioners, those are people who gain for
themselves by deceit. Unjust, it's not fair. Adulterers, I'm not like that.
I'm not an extortioner. I'm not an unjust person. I'm
not an adulterer or even as this publican. Yeah, so that's what
I don't do. Let me tell you now what I do
do. I do fast in the week twice, and I do give tithes of all that
I possess. I could go on and on. I'm sure
you could. But the Lord Jesus had made his point here about
this man. He sought recognition from God, and he got none, because
he sought God's recognition of himself. God cannot respect a
man. He says, and the publican, standing
afar off, he knew he was not worthy to even get near. He would not lift up so much
as his eyes to heaven. But he smote upon his breast.
That's where the problem was. It's here. is with me. Oh, wretched
man that I am. That's the first principle of
the gospel. I am wretched in my sin. And the next part is this. Who
shall deliver me? I can't deliver myself. Someone
else has to do it. And then the third part is, I
thank God. Because only God can. Only God
will. He's the one I've sinned against.
He must provide an answer. He must provide an appeasement,
a propitiation. He must provide satisfaction.
In his wisdom, he has to be holy and yet provide a way in his
righteousness to justify me. So he smote upon his breast and
he said, God, Be merciful to me, and the word is the sinner,
not just a sinner, but the sinner. And the word merciful here is
the same word as propitiation. Now, in 1 John 4, let me read
this to you. In 1 John 4, I want you to see
what he was asking. In 1 John 4, in verse 10, it
says, herein is love, not that we loved God, That's what the
Pharisee thought. But that he loved us and sent
his son to be the propitiation for our sins. The propitiation
is something that you give in order to gain the favor of. We
couldn't gain God's favor by anything we could give. It's
also given to appease the wrath of the one whose justice and
wrath you're under, we couldn't give anything to take away God's
wrath or our sin, which was the cause of God's wrath. But in
love, God gave his son to be that. to be what gains His favor
for us, what takes away our sin and takes away His wrath because
of our sin. He's the propitiation. And in
the Old Testament, this was taught by God when He told the high
priest, you take the blood of that goat and you sprinkle that
blood on the mercy seat, the place of satisfaction and of
atonement. And when I see the blood, the
cherubim looking down on that mercy seat, and the mercy seat
covering what was in the ark, the broken law, and the manna
that was rejected that God had provided, and the rod that budded,
all of the rejection of man, of man's rejection of God, and
yet the Lord Jesus Christ between those, the one mediator between
God and men, sprinkling his blood, God looking upon his blood and
being satisfied, appeased, his wrath taken away because sin
was dealt with and his justice was answered and favor was restored. Now this didn't happen as if
God changed from one thing to another and back again. It was
always determined. It was foreordained, Christ the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And so the publican
Perhaps, we don't know it was a parable, but the Lord Jesus,
He's teaching us what He writes by the pen of the Holy Spirit
on the hearts of His people. This is what He writes. I am
a sinner. I have nothing. God cannot look
upon me. He has to look to the propitiation
and be merciful to me because of Christ. That's it. And so he comes beating on his
breast, not lifting his eyes. God, be propitious, be merciful
to me. Receive me in consideration,
not of me at all. Don't give me what I deserve.
Consider only Christ. Look to him and look to me in
him. And this is the teaching of all
of scripture. This is what Cain and Abel teaches.
This is what the parable of the prodigal and the elder brother
teaches. And this is, we could go on and
on throughout scripture. I could just catalog it for you.
In fact, this is what the difference between our flesh and the spirit,
the newness of walking in the spirit versus walking after the
flesh. We saw this in Romans 4. To him
that worketh not, That's walking in the spirit. But to him that
worketh, that's walking in the flesh. Relying on and asking
God to recognize and give us something because of some even
little part that we ourselves did or finding ourselves for
confidence and assurance and therefore we come to God. No,
never any confidence in ourselves. We have no confidence in the
flesh, Philippians 3.3. So what is it to do the will
of the Father, which is in heaven then? What does he mean when
he says, he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven? Well, if you look at John, the
book of John, I'll read a few places here that should convince
us what that will is. Look at 1 John 5, and I'll take
you to these just quickly. In John 5, in verse 37, Jesus
says, He says in John 5.37, the Father
himself, which has sent me, so this is clearly, he's on God's
mission, right? Has borne witness of me. You have neither heard his voice
at any time nor seen his shape, and you have not his word abiding
in you for whom he has sent him you believe not. This is not doing the will of
God the Father which sent him. God the Father sent him. These
men who heard Jesus speak this did not have his word abiding
in them because they did not believe the one God sent. In fact, he says in the next
verse, search the scriptures for in them you think you have
eternal life because they tell me what I have to do. I get busy,
I do it, I expect I'm going to get eternal life. No. They are they which testify of
me. And you will not come to me that
you might have life. See, that's the issue. God has
revealed here the Lord Jesus Christ exposes them. You do not
even have my father's word in you because you're not believing
the one he sent. You search the scriptures to
find, you know, eternal life. You think because by doing what
you see the scriptures command, you expect to receive it as a
reward. But no. They testify of me. The scriptures testify of Christ
who would do the will of God, who would fulfill the law and
the prophets, who would be the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. In other words, the only way,
the narrow way to God is the Lord Jesus Christ. It's what
he has done. So that the sinner who comes
to God in the right way, in the narrow way, he doesn't come asking
God to recognize him, looking to him, giving him what he deserves
or what he has earned. He comes saying, look to Christ.
Consider him, don't give me what I deserve. Reward Him, and by
Your grace, based upon the propitiation, the redemption that is in His
blood, give me that life that He earned, that's in Him. He's the way, His wisdom, His
righteousness, not mine. His faith, not my faith. I'm
not looking to my faith, I'm looking to him. Don't look at
my faith, Lord. It's full of sin. It's weak,
it's not even mentionable. What I have is only from you,
and all it does is direct me to look away from myself to the
Lord Jesus Christ. And so he says, look over in
chapter six of John chapter six, John six, And verse 28, the men
saw Jesus make the bread. They said, what shall we do that
we might work the works of God? And Jesus said, you wanna work
the works of God? This is the work of God. that you believe on Him whom
He has sent. It's not your work at all. It's
His work. Believe Him. Don't believe in
yourself. Don't bring something from yourself
and don't expect a reward for your work. Nothing of you. We must abandon. God has to change
our minds in such a radical way that we forsake everything about
ourselves. Anything that can be called mine,
I have to abandon it and forsake it and find my only hope in everything
that belongs to Christ. That's it. And so he goes on
and look at one other place in scripture and we'll close with
this in Hebrews chapter four. In Hebrews chapter 4, he says,
in contrast to all those in chapter 3, that he says, verse, I'll
just read in chapter 3 to give you the context, he says, With
whom was God grieved forty years? Was it not with them that sinned,
whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? To whom swear he that they should
not enter into his rest, that land of Canaan? But to them that
believed not, so we see that they could not enter in because
of what? Unbelief. Let us, therefore, fear lest
a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should
seem to come short of it. For unto us, notice, was the
gospel preached as well as unto them, but the word preached did
not profit them, not being mixed with faith and them that heard,
for we which have believed do enter into rest. And that rest
there signified the land of salvation, the land of promise, the land
of all blessings in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our lot, our God-given
inheritance, that bestowment of God, he says in 2 Peter 1,
verse one, he says, we have received that precious lot of faith in
Christ. We have believed, we enter into
rest, as he said, as I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter
into my rest, although the works were finished from the foundation
of the world. And look at verse 10. For he
that is entered into his rest, this is what believing Christ
is. He has ceased from his own works as God did from his. And what is he doing? He's resting
in Christ. He's resting in his work. He
comes to God by him. There's no other way. When we
call on the Lord, we don't call for him to recognize us. Have you noticed that whenever
someone starts to try to get the attention of those they're
speaking to. They always try to appeal to
their self-interests. Man's philosophy always starts
with man and ends with man. What do you want? Well, that's
what we have to talk about. You want better life. You want
a happy life. You want more peace. You want
this. You want that. What you lack is love. What you
lack is success. What you lack is whatever. health,
we could just go on and on. It's all man-centered, isn't
it? Man never starts, is not interested in starting with,
what does God want? What's important to him? Notice,
that's what the gospel does. This is God's work. This will withstand the day of
judgment. This will be allowed into the
presence of His glory. Nothing short of this. We have
all sinned. We have all fallen short of the
glory of God. But now, the righteousness of
God, without the law as manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets, even the righteousness of God, and that is the obedience
of the Lord Jesus Christ unto death. amazing grace that God
would make us his own righteousness in Christ because of what Christ
did. That's our only plea. And that's
all of it. And it's all sufficient. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for these two things always set side by side in scripture. Never
let us miss that the one thing that we must have, the one thing
important to all of heaven is the Lamb of God who shed his
precious blood to satisfy, to magnify and honor and glorify
our God, and to bring us to Him so that we also, because of Him,
might magnify and honor and glorify our God. Help us, Lord, in spirit
and in truth. to worship God in the Lord Jesus
Christ today, tomorrow, and all of our lives, and help us to
learn to speak nothing but of Christ and what He has done,
to not trust in ourselves, to not seek recognition for anything
for ourselves, but to stoop low as He did and point to Him who
is high. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.