All right, 1 Peter chapter 1.
We're still in chapter 1. I want to look at verse 8. We looked at it somewhat last
week, but I didn't emphasize this part, and I want to emphasize
this today. We're going to read from verse
8 to verse 13. 1 Peter 1, verse 8 through 13. The first word of verse eight
is home, home. That's home there is speaking
about the one that has been written about in the verses that precede
it, the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse three. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And though,
in verse seven, it says, the trial of your faith being much
more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried
with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at
the appearing of Jesus Christ. So whom, in verse eight, is the
Lord Jesus Christ? And I have to underscore this
word whom because it is essential that we understand this whenever
we look into God's word that the Bible the word of God through
the gospel lifts up the Lord Jesus Christ. It pleased God
from eternity to exalt his son, to give him all things, and to
put all of his will into his hand to bring it to pass. And
that will was his people, to save them by himself to the uttermost. and in so doing bring glory to
the Son of God and God the Father in Him. That has been the eternal
purpose of God from eternity. That has been the purpose of
God in all of time. And God is fulfilling that purpose
without any failure. And He's doing it to our delight. That's why this verse opens with
whom, whom having not seen, Christians are people who love somebody
they've never seen. And not just anybody, but the
one true and living God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Whom having
not seen, you love. You love him. This is God's word. He didn't say to what degree
you love him, he just said you love him. And we saw last week
that love comes from this grace of faith. We love him because
he first loved us. And we love him, we know he first
loved us because he has spoken of his love for us in his word. And who are the us? Well, God
describes them as the ungodly, sinners without strength, chosen
by God in Christ before the foundation of the world. That's us. There's
no honor in what we are, no honor in what we do, nothing in ourselves
to trust. Our only confidence is that God
had mercy, that in his grace he chose us to salvation and
did so by choosing us in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why
we love him. Jesus gave the account in Luke
chapter 7 of a Pharisee and a woman. The Pharisee invited Jesus to
his house and a woman was there at that time and when she came
in, she came behind Jesus and she wept and poured her tears
upon his feet and unbraided her hair and took her hair and wiped
his feet with her hair. And then she poured an alabaster
box of ointment on his head. And the Pharisee who invited
Jesus to his house, he said in his heart, not outwardly, if
this man knew who this woman was that was touching him, he
would not allow it, if he were a prophet. And Jesus said to
him, Simon, I have something to say to you. He says there
was a man who had two debtors. The one owed him 50, the other
owed him 500 of whatever the denomination of money was. And
when they both had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them
both. And he said to Simon, now which
of them do you think will love him the most? And the Pharisee
said, well, I suppose him to whom he forgave the most." And
Jesus said, you have rightly answered. Do you see this woman?
Since she came in, she has not ceased to wash my feet with her
tears and dry them with her hair. And she anointed me with this
oil, this alabaster box. You haven't provided even water
to wash my feet. And so he was pointing out to
her, to him, that those, and he said this explicitly, he said,
to the one who has been forgiven much, he will love much. And
here it says in 1 Peter 1 verse 8, whom having not seen, you
love. Why do we love him? If we love
Him, because God has taught us that we've been forgiven much.
Every Christian has been forgiven much. If you haven't been forgiven
much, you haven't been forgiven at all. And if you've been forgiven
much, then you believe on Him that His love towards you in
Christ is cause for nothing but love from you. We don't have
to look at our love. We look to Christ who loved us
and gave himself for us. But we do love him, don't we?
And we love him because, not only because he first loved us,
but the way in which he loved us. His humility. Have you ever
met someone more humble? Have you ever met someone who
served, who was so high, who served someone so vile as us? There is none. So we love him.
The love of Christ for his people constrains us. It says in 2 Corinthians
5.14, the love of Christ constrains us. And so we love him because
he first loved us. So he says, in whom, though now
you see him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory. And if you just put an ellipsis,
a dot, dot, dot between in whom and you rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory, then you'll see the text of my sermon today.
In whom you rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory. And I have two questions. How
can we rejoice with joy unspeakable? And why do we rejoice with joy
unspeakable? Well, the how is answered for
us in this text. He says, in whom though now you
see him not yet believing. The how is we rejoice with joy
unspeakable through faith. Everything that the believer
does is through God-given faith. Faith is not of ourselves. It
doesn't arise from us. It's not a virtue in us. because
faith by its very definition is the eyes to see Christ in
his person and in his work. seeing Christ as a sinner who
needs salvation and seeing that God has provided and we find
all of our salvation in Him alone. That's what faith is. It's seeing
Christ as a needy sinner, seeing Him as my all-sufficient Savior. And that God-given faith enables
us to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. It's faith. It's because we believe Him.
And then we ask this question, not only how, through faith,
but why. Why do we rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory? And here I want to direct you
to the words, in whom. He says, in whom, though now
you see Him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory. Why do we rejoice with joy unspeakable? because we are believing Him,
because it's Him we believe. The one we believe is the reason
we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. The one who
we believe is none other than the Son of God, the one God gave,
the one God appointed and anointed to be the Savior of His people,
the one whose name is Jesus, the Savior. He shall save his
people from their sins. That's his name, Jesus. And that
was the name God told Joseph to give him when he was to be
born, because it means Jehovah is salvation. He is Jehovah. He is our salvation. And he shall
save his people from their sins. There's not a possibility of
failure. Otherwise, his name wouldn't
be Jehovah is Salvation. God upholds his name in our salvation. If our salvation fails, then
God ceases to be who he claims to be, and Jesus is our Savior. So he says, in whom you rejoice
with joy unspeakable and full of glory." In whom? In believing
in Christ, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
What does it mean, in Christ? In whom? Now, I think that there's
nothing more comforting, nothing more unexpected, nothing more
surprising, nothing more endearing, nothing more comforting and blessed
to understand this truth in Christ. This is the cause of our rejoicing
with joy unspeakable because it's in whom we believe. In whom? What does it mean to be in Christ? This is something that I did
not know until recent years, I would say. In Christ. These two little words, in Christ. I want to look at a few verses
with you because this is so essential that unless we understand this,
we cannot understand our salvation. Our salvation is in Christ. And therefore, because it is
in Him, then we can rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. What's the opposite of being
in Christ? It's being outside of Christ.
And what is the opposite? What does it mean to be outside
of Christ? It's to stand before God in myself. It's to appear before God in
my own defense. It's to answer God with my own
answer. But because we are in Christ,
then God has laid everything for His people upon His Son.
He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. And therefore, we
are healed. We are dead to sins. And we live
to God. Because we're in Him. And I want
to look at some of these texts of Scripture with you. First
of all, I would point out this. That our salvation by God, according
to His Word, not my Word. I would never have dreamed of
this. But according to God's word, it never would have entered
into the heart of man unless God revealed it. That he saves
his people by imputing to them the works of Christ. Look at
Romans chapter 5. And it's because we're in him.
The very basis of our salvation depends on this. In Romans chapter
5 and verse 12, look at this with me. The foundation is laid
at creation. God did all that he did in creation
as a figure, as a shadow, as a prototype of our salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus Christ is the
one through whom God made the worlds. He made all things by
Jesus Christ. All things were made by him and
for him. He's the sovereign and he's the
one designated in the Godhead to bring all things into existence
by his will and word and power. And so what we have here in creation
is that in this work of Christ, in creating the world by His
Spirit, because it was the Spirit that brooded upon the face of
the waters and said, let there be light, that we see the Lord
Jesus Christ setting up a picture as an artist who skillfully paints
the portrait of the message he wants to convey, and that message
is in the creation of this world. And so in Romans chapter 5 and
verse 12, he says, wherefore, as by one man's sin entered into
the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all
men, for that all have sinned. Now, this is the sad part. But
remember, the prototype is to bring the greatest possible glory
to God. and His grace in bringing salvation
and good out of the worst possible circumstances and evil. The worst
motives of men, out of that, God brought His great, holy righteousness
and grace. And so, even though by one man
sin entered into the world, that man being Adam, and death by
sin, death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. What
Adam did, we did. That's what this is saying. We
died because we committed the sin that Adam committed because
we were in Adam. In 1 Corinthians 15, hold your
place in Romans, in 1 Corinthians 15, I'll read it from verse 20,
he says this, In 1 Corinthians 15 20, but now
is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of
them that slept for since by man came death, that was Adam,
by man came also Christ, the resurrection of the dead for,
verse 22, as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive. So back in Romans chapter 5,
we see the second part, in Adam all died. because we committed
the sin. We were in Adam so that when
he took the fruit, being in him, God created the entire human
race when he created Adam. And Adam gave birth to his children,
and so on, and so on. And all that Adam did, we did
in him. This is the way God did it. The
basis of our guilt is God's imputation of Adam's sin to us. And it wasn't
an imputation of something for which we were not guilty. We
did it. That's what God saw. That's the
way it was. What God said is the way it is. For until the law, verse 13,
Romans 5. For until the law, sin was in
the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless,
death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned
after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who was the figure
of him that was to come. Now, without getting into the
details of what this verse means, let me underscore the last part.
He was the figure of him that was to come, Christ. Verse 15, but not as the offense,
so also the free gift. For if through the offense of
one, Adam, many be dead, all of us, everyone in Adam, born
to Adam, eventually, much more the grace of God And the gift
by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto
many. To whom? Many. Who are they? Those in Christ. Verse 16. And not as it was by one that
sinned the gift, for the judgment was by one to condemnation. Adam's
one sin brought guilt upon not only himself, but his people,
and God's judgment was his people being all born to him, God's
judgment was to condemnation through Adam's one sin. Just
that one sin. We weren't guilty of everything
that Adam did, just that one sin. and death by that one sin. Can you imagine? One sin, God's
judgment by that one to the condemnation of all. And yet, notice, it was
not as by one that sinned the gift, for the judgment was by
one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses
unto justification. All of the sins of all of God's
people were charged to Christ And all of the obedience and
all of the blood of Christ that he shed was credited to them. That's a free gift. It was a
credit of righteousness and by that righteousness God justified
them. He looked upon what Christ did
in shedding his blood and he said, they are righteous. That's justification. God declaring
what is true because we were chosen in Christ, given to Christ,
all that he did, he did bearing our sins and obeying God in righteousness. Verse 17, for if by one man's
death, I'm sorry, for if by one man's offense, Adams one, offense,
death reigned by one." Notice how God is underscoring this. One man, Adam. One man, Christ. Much more, they which receive
abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign
as kings in life by one, Jesus Christ. Not by us. Our only part
in this is what Jesus Christ did and that God set him up as
the surety, the representative head of all of his people. And
then he says, therefore, as by the offense of one, Judgment
came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness
of one. Words couldn't be clearer. The
free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. Are all
men justified? No. Can the all men here therefore
mean everybody without exception? No. The all men here cannot mean
everybody without exception because not all men are justified unto
life. If we live, it's because we were
declared righteous in the righteousness of Christ. If we receive life
from Christ, it's because Christ died for us and fulfilled all
that God required for our righteousness in his obedience unto death.
And that justification necessarily results in life. The righteous
live, only the righteous live. Everyone for whom Christ shed
his blood and fulfilled their obedience to God. And God and
Christ gave an answer to God that satisfied God in his justice
and magnified his law in his righteousness. And God said,
that is righteousness. That is righteous, and he justified
him, but because he was not a private man, he was a representative
man. When God justified him, he justified
all for whom he laid down his life and fulfilled our obedience. He was made under the law to
redeem them that were under the law that we might receive this.
So, verse 19, for as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners,
or constituted by God as sinners, so by the obedience of one. And we know now who that is,
the Lord Jesus Christ, shall many be made righteous, considered
by God, which is the way that is. How do you know there's gravity
in the world? Well, you say, because I can't
fly, I can't float. There's more fundamental reason
than that. It's because God made it. And God made it this way. In God's... What's the word? Inscrutable holiness and justice. God is righteous in all His ways
and holy in all His works. He set this down. It was out
of God. His holy truth that this principle
on which we are justified and by which we are guilty in Adam
and justified in Christ, that this is true. The basis, this
is the important point here, the basis of our righteous standing
before God is only because we were in Christ. now. That's so essential. He goes
on, moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound.
The law has that effect on a sinful person. It just causes us to
desire and commit sin, and the things we do are amplified by
the law, because it shows in bright light that we are gross
sinners, not only in our actions, but in our thoughts and motives.
But he says in verse 21, that as sin hath reigned unto death,
this is when there was an abounding sin, then grace did much more
abound. As sin has reigned unto death,
even so might grace reign as a king through righteousness,
whose the Lord Jesus Christ through righteousness unto eternal life. Therefore, we see that the righteousness
of Christ is the basis of our life. He is our life and we were
raised with him. He was delivered for our offenses.
He was raised again for our justification. Now, that's the first point.
In Christ, therefore, we see that God set it up as a prototype
in Adam. The picture in creation was displayed,
God's principle that he set down from before the foundation of
the world, that all in Adam would die and all in Christ would be
made alive. And the only way, how do we get
in Adam? How did we get into Adam? God created us in Adam. How do we get into Christ? That's
the question. Look at Ephesians chapter 1.
Ephesians chapter 1. How do I get into Christ? And
this might offend your pride, but this is the truth. He says
in Ephesians 1 verse 3. In verse 2 he says, grace be
unto you and peace from God our Father. That just makes your
shoulders relax, doesn't it? peace from God our Father and
from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us, notice, with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, where? In Christ. He didn't look upon Henry, or
George, or Bill, or Mary, or Sally, and say, ah, there's one,
there's one, there's one. No. The entire human race was
considered in Adam. Adam sinned. All were guilty.
All were judged by God worthy of death and condemned. And death
therefore passed upon them, even on infants. Before they had the
ability to do right or wrong, death passed upon them because
they were in Adam. As in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive. And we were blessed with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Therefore,
it's not because of my merit, it's not because of my obedience,
it's not because of my thoughts or motives, my sincerity, my
commitment or anything. It's only because God put us
in Christ and gave Him everything. And giving Him everything, He
gave it to Him for His people. Verse four, according, all spiritual
blessings included this at the fountainhead, at the spring,
he says, according as he hath chosen us in him, before the
foundation of the world. So obviously, God was uninfluenced
by all that was outside of him, because there was no creation
before the foundation of the world, and only God was there.
Only God, the only thing that influences God is God. It says,
look at verse 11. In whom also we have obtained
an inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of him
who works all things after the counsel of his own will. There you have it. But back to
verse four. God has chosen us in Christ. And why? That we should be holy
and without blame before Him in love. God chose us to this,
to be holy before God and to be without blame before God because
we were chosen. And this is why, because He chose
us in Christ by one man's obedience, many made righteous in Christ. Now, I want to consider this
even further because I know this point is so essential and important. Everything hinges on this. Everything
hangs on it. God looks... Do you ever feel
frustrated that you did not live the life you wanted to live?
Or that you don't? I do all the time. How does God comfort us? How does he sustain us in spite
of our Our full, our sinfulness. How does he do that? He exalts
his son. Look at my son. Look at him.
He's the only one who could ever and did ever live the life God
required him to live. And only in him are we accepted
by God. And this is the most wonderful
news of all. That's why in 1 Peter 1 and verse
8 he says, in whom You rejoice with joy unspeakable and full
of glory. Because it's because we're in
Christ that we're enabled to rejoice with joy unspeakable.
Like the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears and dried
them with her hair and poured the ointment on his head. She
could be no more thankful. He forgave me everything. Everything. All my sins. past, present, and
future, forever forgiven, washed and cleansed of all my sins in
the blood of his Son. And so we have this. Now I'm
going to look at a couple more verses with you. Now, look at
1 Peter chapter 2. I mentioned this earlier. I want
to draw your attention to it again. 1 Peter chapter 2. We're
in 1 Peter and we'll eventually get to this in verse 24. Well,
let me back up. Verse 21, for here unto, for
even here unto were you called. Verse 21, 1 Peter 2. Even here
unto were you called because Christ also suffered for us. leaving us an example that you
should follow his steps, who did no sin, neither was guile
found in his mouth. He had no, there was nothing
about him that was evil, nothing he spoke, nothing he said. Who
when he was reviled, reviled not again. Remember when Pilate
told him, he said, why don't you answer me? Don't you know
I have power to kill you? Basically, he said that. Anyway,
he says, when he was reviled, he reviled not again. When he
suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him
that judges righteously. Notice verse 24. How and why
did he do all of this? Who his own self, bear our sins
in his own body on the tree. Now this is what he did. This
is history. Did you contribute to history?
No, not this history. Were you there? No, not in your
history. But God did this in history. And in history, Christ bare the
sins of his people in his own body on the tree. And this is
why, that we, notice these words, being dead to sins. How did we
die to sins? Because we were in Christ. Don't you know, Romans chapter
6 verse 3, don't you know that as many of us as were baptized
into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore, we
are buried with him by baptism into death. And the Apostle Paul,
in Galatians 2.19, he says, I, through the law, am dead to the
law. I'm crucified with Christ. How could we be crucified with
Him? Because God chose us in Him before the foundation of
the world. The basis of the imputation of our sins to Christ is God's
judicial act of, His gracious act and judicial too, His holy
act of putting us in Christ by His electing choice of love and
grace. So when Christ bore our sins
in his own body on the tree, we died to sins. Because our
sins as a body were placed on him, and when he died, our body
of sins died with him. Christ died for our sins according
to the scripture. And so he says that we, being
dead to sins, how did we die to sins? We died in Christ. When
he died, we died. But that's not the end. He was
also buried. When he was buried, our sins
were buried with him. Like the high priest who laid
his hands on the scapegoat in Leviticus 16, 21 and 22 and confessed
over that head of that scapegoat all the sins of Israel. So Christ,
our high priest, confessed over his own head the sins of all
of his people and laid our sins on him. And so when he was buried,
all of our sins were put out of memory of God, so that he
removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west.
Psalm 103. We died in his death because
we were in him. God charged him with our sins
and he bore them in his own body on the tree. And God received
his obedience in that as our everlasting righteousness. And
notice he says, being dead to sins, we should live unto righteousness
by whose stripes you were healed. He was beaten. I was healed. This wasn't, this was just, not
just an ordinary man in history like Abraham Lincoln. It was,
it was the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God who came as the
surety of his people. The one who bore all that the
Father laid on him in order that he might answer justice with
himself and obtain from God's justice the release of all of
his people so that they might be able to go back free in liberty
to their father again. And that's all depicted in the
suretyship of Judah for Benjamin when he stood before Joseph on
behalf of Benjamin that he had pledged himself to his father
Jacob. in Genesis 43 and 44. But here
we see it, a marvelous thing. Christ died. It is Christ who
died. He didn't die for himself. He
died for his people. He didn't die because of his
own sins that he committed. He died for sins we committed
that were made to be his. So that he bore them as his and
answered God's justice for them for us. And his answer to God's
justice was received from him as for us and from us in him. How can I explain this? I stand
amazed in the presence at Jesus the Nazarene. and wondered how
he could love me, a sinner condemned, unclean." So here we have it.
Look also at 2 Corinthians chapter 5. We have to have this firmly
in our understanding in order that we might enter into this
why we do rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. 2 Corinthians
chapter 5. I'll just read the last verse
of chapter 5. Speaking of what God has done. to the Lord Jesus
Christ in order to bring his people to himself. He says, for
he hath, God the Father hath made him, Christ, sin for us. who knew no sin. The Lord Jesus
Christ knew no sin, He did no sin, and in Him is no sin, but
God made Him sin for us. He laid our sins on His Son.
He hath laid upon Him, Isaiah 53, the iniquity of us all. For the transgression, Isaiah
53, 8, for the transgression of my people was He stricken. That's the gospel. Christ died
for our sins according to the scripture. So he hath made him
to be sin for us, he who knew no sin, that we who knew no righteousness
might be made the righteousness of God in him. Nothing is more comforting, nothing
is more constraining to cause us to venture
upon the Lord Jesus Christ in complete trust and confidence
that God looks only to his Son for his people. He does not look
to them any more. When Joseph interrogated the
brothers of Benjamin, He didn't keep interrogating them once
Judah stepped forward and said, I became surety for him. I became surety to my father
for my brother. And if I don't bring him back
again, he told his father, let me bear the blame forever. And
then he said, now take me instead of the lad and let him go up
free with his brethren to his father again. What a picture. And Paul writing to Philemon
regarding Onesimus in Philemon chapter one, verse 12, he says,
receive him, receive Onesimus, Philemon, as myself. Receive him as myself. What a
blessed truth this is. God made Christ to be sin, our
sin. He did it for us, who Christ
knew no sin, that we might be made. by God's act, the righteousness
of God in him. Let's look at Isaiah chapter
45. One more text of scripture. I won't exhaust this, but you
can continue to marvel at this as you read scripture and trust
that God would receive you for Christ's sake. This is faith.
This is saving faith. We don't come to God in our own
righteousness. We don't come to God Even though
we are in our own sins, we don't come thinking we're going to
somehow absolve ourselves of our sins. We can't do anything. We're not just nothing, we're
less than nothing. God has to, in his sovereign
mercy, before he did one thing in creation, he has to preserve
us in Christ Jesus and look to Christ for us for all things,
which he did. And that's why God has received
him and us with him. Isaiah 45, verse 21. Tell ye
and bring them near, yea, let them take counsel together, Who
hath declared this from ancient time? What? Who hath told it
from that time? Have not I the Lord, and there
is no God else beside me? This is what God has declared
from ancient time. He is a just God and a Savior. Now those two things seem incompatible
to the human mind. but they don't seem incompatible
to the God of glory. And this is his glory, that he
would forgive iniquity, that he would be gracious to whom
he would be gracious, that he is a just God and he justifies
the ungodly because he gave them to his son. Notice verse 22,
the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking here. In verse 22, this is him
speaking in Scripture by the Spirit of God, recording these
words of Christ, our Savior, our just God and Savior, who
speaks to us here in this command. He says, verse 22, look unto
me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and
there is none else. I have sworn by myself the word
has gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return that unto
me. Every knee shall bow and every
tongue shall swear. Now that's a quotation taken
from here and quoted in Romans chapter 14 and verse 11, I think. So here he's, this is the Lord
Jesus Christ without question. Verse 24, notice this. Surely
shall one say, In the Lord have I righteousness and strength. I don't have any strength. Ah,
but God has made Christ your strength. I have no righteousness. When I appear before God in judgment,
before the judgment seat of Christ to give an answer, what answer
can I give? My answer is the one who sits
on the throne. Lord, if you don't answer for
me, I have no answer. If your answer at the cross was
insufficient, I have no answer. If your answer in my conscience
now is not all sufficient, I have no answer to give to God. In
honesty, I'm a guilty sinner in Adam. But he says, Here, surely
shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength,
even to him shall men come, and all that are incensed against
him shall be ashamed, because they stand in their own person,
in their own works, at their own answer. But notice in verse
25, in the Lord, that's Christ, shall all the seed of Israel
be justified and shall glory be. We're justified in Christ,
we glory in Christ, and this is true of every believer, all
the seed of Israel, all those like Abraham who believe Christ. Now back to 1 Peter 1. So do
you see now, is there a cause for us to have this rejoicing
with joy unspeakable and full of glory? There's just cause,
isn't there? If our standing before God is
only in Christ, then there's no reason for us to have anything
but unspeakable joy and rejoicing at all times, isn't there? Isn't
this the reason why in 1 Thessalonians 5 he says, rejoice evermore? Rejoice evermore. Your Savior
sits on heaven's throne, ordering this universe. Not one thing
of all of his will will fail in everything in your life, whether
to you it seemed good and pleasant or it seemed unpleasant. Everything is ordered by his
all wise, compassionate, tender mercies for his people to bring
them to himself and present them in his own righteousness, in
the perfection of his own righteousness, in the presence of his glory,
without fault, without blame, with exceeding joy. Jude 1 24. Exceeding joy on his part and
ours. with exceeding joy, this unspeakable
joy, because we're in Christ, because of the one who loved
us. because of his character, because
of his grace, his peace, his holiness. We don't have any shadow
of a reason in our conscience to feel apologetic or as if we're
compromising somehow. God himself stands before the
universe and he says, who shall lay anything to the charge of
God's elect? It is God that justify it. And
who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. Yea,
rather, who is risen again, who is also seated at the right hand
of God, who also makes intercession for us. Is that not enough reason
to joy with joy unspeakable and full of glory in Christ? We believe him, that's the reason
we joy this way. We have joy and peace in believing
him. What a blessed thing it is. Let
me turn to one more verse of scripture here. You can do this
on your own time. Just search the scriptures for
these things of joy and rejoicing and greatly rejoicing. But in
Isaiah chapter 61, in Isaiah 61, look at this. Isaiah 61, we've been talking
about how we're clothed in the righteousness of Christ by the
will of God according to his holy perfections and all that
he is as God, he's seen fit to do this, and it magnifies his
grace and mercy, but it also magnifies his righteousness and
justice. He says in Isaiah 61, verse 10,
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. Isn't that what Peter was
talking about? In whom? You rejoice with joy
unspeakable. Here he says, I will greatly
rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my
God. Why? Here's the reason. For he
hath clothed me in the garments of salvation. He has covered
me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decketh himself
with ornaments and as a bride adorneth herself with jewels,
with her jewels. This is it. This is the reason
for our rejoicing. And it's a great rejoicing, isn't
it? In every trial, when your sin rises up in your conscience
and in your life, and you feel unable to do one thing, and your
iniquities prevail against you, what do you do? You cry out with
the psalmist in Psalm 65, 3, Iniquities prevail against me. As for our transgressions, thou
shalt purge them away. And this is what God has done
for us in Christ. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank
you for this great mercy of yours, that you would so make yourself
our surety in that eternal pledge to your Father for your people
to bring them again, and to lay yourself on the line, your name
and your life, and give up your life and lay it down, and not
lay it down under unwilling constraint, but voluntarily in love. When
love So great that it can only be compared to the love of a
man for his wife you have given yourself for the church that
you might have her. Every one given to you by your
father and to cleanse her from all sin and unrighteousness and
to clothe her in the beauty of your garments of salvation. What
an awesome salvation from a from a holy and eternal and blessed
Savior. We pray, Lord Jesus, that you
would bless us from your word, give us this grace of faith that
we might, in our souls, rejoice with joy unspeakable and full
of glory. In his name we pray, amen.