If you wanna turn in your Bibles
to 1 Peter, we're going to continue our venture through the book
of 1 Peter. I think that it would have been
difficult as the writers of the epistles to contain themselves
and to limit what they had to say as they have done. It seems
that the information is so compact And the truth flows at such a
rapid rate that we have to slow way down in order to get it.
At least I do. And we have to repeat. It's like
when I was a little child and I played in the dirt with my
cars and trucks. I would take that truck, run
it back and forth over the dirt to make the road smooth. That's
what we have to do with the gospel. We just have to keep running
back and forth over it to make it understandable. and to let
the work of God's word have its effect in our lives. So I want
to look at these verses here in 1 Peter 1 still. We're not beyond the part that's
such a blessing because these blessings are infinite. These blessings are not limited
by our imagination. They're only limited by God's
imagination and his will. Heaven is not in proportion to
what we can think of. Heaven is in proportion to what
God has thought. And so eye has not seen, ear
has not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man
the things God has prepared for them that love him. And think
about the infinite God and His infinite mind, all of it holy,
all of it good, and all of it to His glory and for His people
in Christ. Everything that God could imagine,
He has blessed His Son with, and everything He has given His
Son, He has given to His people. Never fall short. of the blessings
God has promised in his word. Never come short of it in our
own estimation that we can lay hold on it in Christ because
it's all in him, it's not in us. It doesn't depend on our
worth or our works or our ability to imagine, it depends upon the
Lord. And so when we look at these
things, Peter is just overflowing with a desire to comfort God's
suffering people. And these people suffered more,
I think, than any time in history because they were pushing the
boundaries of the darkness of the kingdom of Satan and the
opposition to the gospel in their own lives so that they were suffering
personally, even unto death, horrible death. at the hand of
the government and false religion the Jews had had for hundreds
of years. And they were opposing this with
a declaration that, no, salvation is not of us. And it's not because
of who we are or who we were born to. It's all in Christ. And that news came as an utter
assault on the pride of man. And man reared back on his hind
legs in opposition to the gospel in that day and brought affliction
on these people. And Peter comes with the voice
of Christ in the word of God to comfort these people with
the most powerful thing that he could bring. which is to tell
them about what God did from eternity, what Christ did at
the cross, and what the Spirit of God does in our own lives
by making Christ known. And that's what's being said
here. So we have to take our time to understand this and ask
God to make it true to us so that we don't just skip over
it like those who are trying to get to the end of some book
or some comic strip. This is all about the eternal
will and work and glory of God. So we want to look at it in that
light. First Peter chapter one, I'm just going to read through
verse two on through verse three. 6 today. He says, elect according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father. These are the ones God is writing
to through the Apostle Peter. Jesus Christ sending his own
word through Peter to them. He tells them, first and foremost,
you have been elected by God the Father because he loved you
in Christ before the foundation of the world. Secondly, He chose
you to this salvation. You were chosen in Christ through
sanctification of the Spirit. God chose the means of our salvation
not only to be His will, Christ's work, but the Spirit giving us
life. pointing us to what? The obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Now, I've looked
at that before and thought that was my obedience. But I do not
think that's what it's talking about. It's talking about here
the work of God in our salvation. Therefore, this is the obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. And to those, those
God has chosen, those set apart by the Spirit to show them Christ
and Him crucified. To those, he says, grace unto
you and peace be multiplied. Be multiplied, magnified. We think about sometimes our
own poverty in this world. Maybe we don't have enough to
hardly meet our bills, paying our bills, and we become anxious
about that. What will happen next year if
inflation continues, or if my job waivers, or if the economy
crashes? And we begin to think about those
things, and we think about, or we take an accounting of what
we have. God's resources are His grace and mercy in Christ,
and they are infinite. His mercy and grace towards his
people is like a river flowing from the throne of God to them.
They cannot drink it all in. It's just too much. It's like
trying to absorb the energy from the sun. We're 93 million or
so miles from the sun and a little pinhole in the whole sphere of
that energy effulgence on earth. And yet it's enough to power
the whole earth. Now think of that and magnify that beyond
your wildest imaginations. God's grace and mercy in Christ
is so far beyond what we can absorb that is multiplied to
us, the riches of his mercy and grace to us in Christ. We see
this in what God did. He gave his son. He required
that his son fulfill his law and perfect his people through
his own righteousness and his own sacrifice of himself. That
is an incomprehensible, immeasurable grace and mercy from God. He
says it goes beyond that. It goes beyond that to the giving
of life by the Spirit to show us Christ in his glory. Then
he says in verse three, Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten
us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead. Now, think about this. There's
so much in this verse, but I want you to look at this verse carefully. Who was it that has begotten
us? It's God the Father. And what
was the moving cause? It was His abundant mercy. And
what did He birth us to? A living hope, an expectation
of all that He has promised us, so that we live upon what He
said. All that He's given us in Christ.
And this birth, by the Father, out of His mercy, was by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now, lay it down
in the order that God reveals it in scripture, as like stones
in a building. First, the first foundation is
what? The foreknowledge of God the
Father. And the second foundation is
what? It's the electing purpose of God of his people in Christ. Because of his foreknowledge,
he chose them in Christ. He loved them with an everlasting
love in the Lord Jesus, and he chose them in Christ to be holy
and without blame before him in that love. Ephesians 1 verse
4. Then, on top of that layer, there's
the predestinating purpose of God. He laid out everything required
to make them His sons. He says, I'll read it to you
what he says in Ephesians chapter one and verse five. He says this,
having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will.
No one influenced God. No one was created yet and God
of his own, he was the only one there, God the Father, Son and
Holy Spirit together of his own will predestinated his people
unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself. It
was by Jesus Christ. To make us his children, God
had to do something. Jesus Christ had to do something
because it was by Jesus Christ. And that something meant that
he was going to make us his children. Now we think, as parents, we
think sometimes, I would like to have children. Mom and dad
talk about it. They want children. They can't
really make it happen. Can they? They can't make children
be born. God has to do that. But God uses
the means of that love between mom and dad to bring children
to the birth. But here, God, before we were
ever born, chose to make us his children. Before we ever had
life or were conceived, God said, I want this one, and I want that
one, and that one to be my children. And God put it in his will. so that he would make us his
children by Jesus Christ, he made a slot, if you will, in
his purpose of love that this one and that one and that one
would be named known to him before they were ever created in Christ
to be made his children. And he couldn't just, God wouldn't,
because that's his nature, he couldn't just do this by saying,
okay, now you're all my children. Something had to happen. Jesus
Christ had to do something. because it was God's will to
show his great love for his people and his infinite grace towards
his people that would make him adopt us as his sons by first
showing in the process of time by being born to Adam, that we
were born in sin and therefore had no value, no intrinsic worth,
no works by which God could say, that's why you're my son. In
fact, we were in ourselves the enemies of God in our mind and
by wicked works. But God chose to make us his
children before time began. And so he predestinated us. unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ. He gave us to Jesus Christ that
He might make us holy and without blame before Him in this love
of His that began before the world began. And so he says in
1 Peter chapter 1 that Considering these things, what God has done
to save us, he calls upon God's people. He himself falls, as
it were, on his knees and on his face before God in light
of the truth God has revealed. And he says, join me in this. the Church of God. Join me, you
who are elect of God, set apart by the Spirit, to see the obedience
of Christ and the blood of Christ sprinkled to make you holy before
Him in love. And say this with me, blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he says,
this is what he has done, out of his abundant mercy, according
to his abundant mercy, he has begotten us again unto a lively
hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now, going
back to the foundation, first we saw foreknowledge and we saw
God's electing, the purpose of God in his electing love, choosing
us in Christ, so that he would look upon us in his son. He wouldn't look upon us by ourselves. He would look upon us in his
son, just like he prefigured when we were, when we were, when
God first created all people on the earth. How did he do it?
He didn't just create them all at once, did he? No, He created
them male and female, Adam and Eve, so that we were born, we
were created when God created Adam, but we would be born then
through Adam. And so God says, all of the human
race, every man, woman, boy and girl ever to be born would come
through Adam and Eve. And this is to teach us what
took place in eternity, that God would birth His people to
Himself by Jesus Christ. Just as we were born to Adam,
and because Adam sinned, we became sinners, and because he fell
and his spiritual life died when he sinned, and so we were born,
although in the flesh, spiritually dead, spiritually corrupt. ignorant
of God, unable to receive the things of God, because we were
in Adam. So even before the foundation
of the world, God chose us in Christ. And in Christ, God said,
He's going to create us. He's going to, He's going to Christ would do for us all that
God required, so that whatever Christ did was considered our
doing in Him. And because He fulfilled all
of God's will and shedding His blood for us, He would take away
our sins in Adam and in ourself, and He would give us the righteousness
of Christ and give us life because of His righteousness. So that
everything Christ is, is how God sees his people. And he did
this before time. And he showed his grace in this,
and his mercy and love, and our inability to contribute one thing,
because he saved us when we were yet sinners. He saved us out
of what we became in Adam and in ourselves. And he determined
to do this even before time. God's works are always known
before the foundation of the world. But he says it was by
Jesus Christ. He birthed us again, not like
our first birth, which was to natural life, but he birthed
us again by Jesus Christ, the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead. All right, now we want to think
about this a little bit. Those foundation layers of God's
foreknowledge and his election and his predestination, on top
of that, what came next? The will of God. The will of
God was that there had to be a work performed, and that work
was given to Christ. And Christ did the work. What
was that work? It was the redemption of God's
people who in themselves fell under sin and came under the
bondage of sin and death. and the tyranny of the devil.
And Christ had to redeem them. And so God had a will that Christ
had to fulfill, a work he had to perform. And the Lord Jesus
Christ, as our captain and champion, as our substitute and surety,
he came into the world. God prepared a body for him.
And God gave his son that he might give life to us. It says this in 1 John, in chapter
4, in verse 9. He says, in this was manifested
the love of God toward us because that God sent his only begotten
son into the world that we might live through him. How would we
live? God would send his son. And how
would we live? Through Him. We didn't come up
with this life and this life is not the life we received from
Adam. This is not the life we received
when we were born as babies. This isn't the life that we support
when we go out and run and exercise and eat food and drink water.
That's not the life God's talking about. This is another life.
This is eternal life. He says, God sent his only begotten
son into the world that we might live through him. In our physical
life, we're going to die, but this life is an eternal life. And he also says in verse 10,
herein is love, not that we loved God. It wasn't from us. Love is not seen in what we think
or do, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation
for our sins. Jesus Christ not only accomplished
our salvation, He is our salvation. He is the propitiation for our
sins. He is the Redeemer and the price
the Redeemer paid. He is the ransom paid to God. He gave Himself for our sins. He offered himself, he sacrificed
himself under the guilt of our sins and endured the punishment
our sins deserve. He gave himself completely and
God had given him that will to do. That's that layer. On top
of God's predestinating work, before the world began, God gave
him a will to do and Christ came into the world to do that will,
that we might live through him as the propitiation Made to God
propitiation means that God would receive from Christ a payment
of satisfaction for our sins and that payment would be in
His life laid down, His blood shed for us. God's justice would receive full
payment from him. And that propitiation made to
God would be the work God gave him to do. And in doing that
work, he would make us holy. He would sanctify us by his own
blood. He would perfect us forever by
the one offering of himself to God. Now that's the will and
that's the work. And now see that God has accomplished
this work in Christ and what comes next. What Christ did was
God's work. That work fulfilled is the righteousness
of God. And that righteousness revealed
by Christ's work is credited, it's accounted to, it's imputed
to all those for whom Christ died. What Jesus did is righteousness
before God because it fulfilled His will. It accomplished what
God required from us. And now, because of righteousness,
God looked upon the work of his son, and what did he do? Well,
the work was that he would sacrifice himself for our sins. Having
accomplished that work, God raised him from the dead. He justified
him. God looked upon the work of his
son and he said, that is acceptable, that is holy, that is good, that
is right. And he justified his people and
justified Christ in that work. In Romans chapter four, if you
want to look there with me, in Romans chapter four, it says
it this way. At the very end of the chapter, Romans 4 verse
25, he says, Speaking about the Lord Jesus,
who was delivered by God for our offenses. That's why Christ
was given up to death and suffering. He was delivered because of our
offenses. Not because he had done anything
wrong, he was delivered by God in order that he might take away
our sins. And for him it was obedience,
but he was delivered for our offenses, and he was raised again
for our justification. God looked upon his work in laying
his life down, in sacrifice for the sins of his people, and God
said, that is righteousness. And so God, in saying that, spoke
from heaven and carried out the decision of heaven's court and
raised him from the dead. And that carrying out of that
decision of heaven's court was the release of Christ from the
dead and with his people set free from the guilt of sin and
the power of sin and the power of the punishment of sin, which
is death. Look at Romans chapter 5. And
verse 9, he says, much more than, here's the words, being now justified
by his blood. What is it that justifies us
before God? The blood of Christ, the offering
of the Lord Jesus Christ in obedience to God for the remission of the
sins of his people and sacrifice to God for their sins. Look at
the last verse of Romans 5. What does it say? As sin reigned,
it has reigned unto death, sin was like a king, and it was a
cruel king because it always ruled to bring about death. Sin has reigned unto death, even
so might grace reign, not sin, but grace, now on the throne.
Now might grace reign through, through what? Righteousness. Whose righteousness? Not my own,
but the Lord Jesus Christ. That Grace reigns like a king
through righteousness. The foundation now is righteousness
and God's justification of His people on the obedience of Christ
unto what? Eternal life all by Jesus Christ
our Lord. So the foundation was laid. The
will of God was set out. The work was laid out for Christ
to do. He accomplished that work. It was a righteousness. A righteousness
not for himself, but to display God's righteousness and it was
worked out by Christ for his people. The Lord our righteousness. In him shall all the house of
Israel be justified and shall glory. And so this is the righteousness. And on that foundation of Christ's
righteousness, God justified his people. He looked at that,
that is righteous. And he justified them. No sin,
all done perfectly. And he therefore did what? What's
the result of this righteousness? What's the result of the decision
of heaven's court to say justified on that righteousness? It's to
give life. Life. That's what Romans 4.25
says. He says, He was delivered for
our offenses. He was raised again to life for
our justification. Brought from death to life because
of righteousness. Grace on the throne, Christ's
throne, the throne of grace, is made a throne of grace to
us because of the propitiating blood of Christ shed in righteousness,
God justifying us, life is therefore given to us. And so he says in
Romans chapter 5, he says this, In verse 16, not as by one that
sinned, not like Adam, is the gift, for the judgment, God's
judgment, was by one, because of one, to condemnation, but
the free gift of God is of many offenses. Our many offenses were
laid on Christ, imputed to Him, and His righteousness is our
justification. That's what verse 16 is saying.
But, he says, for if by one man's offense death reign by one, much
more they which receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness
shall do what? Reign in life by one Jesus Christ. In the next verse, therefore
as by the offense of one, Adam, judgment came upon all men to
condemnation, Even so, by the righteousness of one, the free
gift came upon all men to justification of life. It doesn't mean every
individual on earth. It means all those who are justified.
Because obviously not all are justified. All those who are
justified are justified because of Christ's righteousness. And
that justification, here's the point, is a justification of
life. So now the foundation that we've
been laying here from scripture has taken us all the way up to
life from the dead in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now let me take
you back to 1 Peter chapter 1 and let me ask this question. What
does it mean, what happens when you are born? My daughter is
about to have her first child. There's a new person that's going
to be born into this world. What happens? Life is given. God creates in the womb of the
mother new life. That life didn't exist until
God created it. And so when a baby is born, it's
the evidence of what? Life having been conceived in
the womb of the mother. And how can we have life? The
foundation has taken us all the way up to justification of life,
but how is that life made ours? According to 1 Peter 1 verse
3, it is because out of the abundant mercy of God the Father, He has
birthed us, or begotten us again, unto a lively hope by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead. We had to be given life in order
that we might be born, and that life was by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ. When God the Father raised His
Son from the dead, What was he doing? He was giving life to
his people in Christ. Jesus said, because I live, you
shall live also. Our life is in him. Christ, when
Christ, who is our life, shall appear. Christ is our life. Let me take you back to Galatians. Hold your place in 1 Peter. Take
you back to Galatians 2. This is such a foundational and
pivotal verse of scripture. Galatians 2, verse 19. Paul said, I, through the law,
am dead to the law that I might live unto God. Notice, I am crucified
with Christ. Can you see that? Can you feel
it? Can you look at anything physical
in this world and prove that that's true? No. All we have
is the word of God and this gift of faith. He says in verse 20,
I am crucified with Christ. I mean, I wasn't there. How could
I be? Because God put me in Christ. God chose me and put me in Christ. Therefore, whatever he did, I
did it in him. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless,
I live. Now we think, well, yeah, God
has given me life, and I just go on and I live this life. No,
that's not what he's saying. I live, yet not I. This life
that I have isn't some independent biological thing going off in
its own little world over here. No, the very life that I live
is Christ. He says, I live, yet not I. I don't have life independent
of God. I live, not I, but Christ liveth
in me. This life that's in me, this
life that God has created in me now, which had died in Adam,
but now God has created in me, is life from the dead and it
is Christ in me. Christ lives in me. Jesus said,
I am the resurrection and the life. I am the truth, the way,
and the life. And all who believe in me have
their possession. Present tense is everlasting
life because Christ lives in me. And how did that happen?
Christ had to raise from the dead. How did he rise from the
dead? God justified him. because of
his righteousness. He put away our sins. He removed
the barrier. He took away from that tyrant
king sin. He took away the power of sin
because he removed sin and put sin to death and death to death
in the death of Christ. And God therefore raised him
from the dead and in raising Christ, raised his people with
him. Now, when he raised Jesus from
the dead, when was that? In history. It was approximately
2,000 years ago before I was ever born. But when God raised
him from the dead, he raised his people with him. I was not
only crucified with Christ, I rose with Christ. But the occurrence
of my life in my experience doesn't take place until God's word comes
to me through the preaching of the gospel and his spirit applies
that word so that I live. God gives me life in my spirit
because he raised me with Christ in history. In the history of
my life, I am born at that point to God. My spiritual birth takes
place and the resurrecting life of Christ is put in me. Christ,
by his spirit, lives in me. Look at Romans chapter 8. And
verse 9, Romans 8, he says this in verse 9, you are not in the
flesh no more. Are you controlled by just merely
flesh? That's not you, but in the spirit. If so be, notice, that the spirit
of God dwell in you. God's spirit dwells in us. Now,
if any man have not, what? The Spirit of Christ. The Spirit
of God is the Spirit of Christ. He is none of His. Unless Christ
lives in us, we can't say that we're the children of God. But
he says, and if Christ be in you, obviously all of God's people
have Christ living in them. Christ is our life. If Christ
be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life
because of righteousness. There you have it. The foundation
of righteousness was laid. Life is given because of righteousness
and that life that was given to Christ from the dead was given
to Him and His people with Him. Jesus said, you shall live because
I live, you shall live also. He is our life and therefore
in God's time, Appointed for each of His adopted sons, He
sends His Spirit into their hearts, and they live, Christ living
in them, and they cry, Abba, Father. You see, the redeeming
work of Christ removed their sin and the curse, and the Spirit
of God is therefore given to them life from the dead in their
souls. But the body is still dead, okay? So back in 1 Peter 1, in verse
3, we see now, unto a lively hope by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead." Now we see it all coming together.
By Jesus Christ from the dead means that when God raised him,
he raised his people, and the occurrence of our resurrection
takes place when the Spirit of God gives us life and we see
Christ is all. because that's the effect of
the Spirit of God. Whatever Christ said about His work, and His
work having obtained our eternal redemption, becomes the persuasion
of our heart. God teaches us what is true,
and what is true is Christ. So now that we are the children
of God by the Spirit living in us, not only by adoption, not
only by the righteousness of Christ charged to our account,
but also His Spirit is given to us, now we're up here in this
level where Christ's righteousness has become the cause why God
raised him from the dead, released him from death, all of our sins
put away, and now that life is given to us in the experience
of our life in our history. Now what? Now we're living. Now
I'm 66, or you're 16, or you're six, or whatever, whatever age
you are. And God, in his mercy, has put
you in, he has made known to you your utter sinfulness and
your need of Christ. And what has he done? He's directed
you to him. He said, look to him. Don't look
at anything you need to do. You look to Christ and what he
has done. The work? of redemption is finished. But
the problem is, is that we're now living in this world, right?
Now we're living in this world, in the body of this flesh, which
is dead because of sin, and the Spirit of God is in us, Christ
lives in us, and we live by the faith of the Son of God, depending
upon Him in our life, and now what? Well, look at the next
verse. We were born by God the Father, as his sons, by Jesus
Christ, as we just read, verse four, to an inheritance incorruptible
and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven
for you. Have you ever gone to a stadium,
maybe a baseball game, and they let you in the front door, and
you look at your ticket, it says something like, blah, blah, blah.
There's the seat you're assigned. You're supposed to go there,
find your seat, and sit down, right? You can't sit just anywhere.
What has God said here? He has birthed us to an inheritance. And that inheritance cannot rust. It can't deteriorate. It can't
be corrupted. That's what incorruptible means.
And it's undefiled. It's holy. It's pure. nothing tainted by sin and disinheritance,
and it fades not away. You know what inflation is? It's
when the government dumps money into the economy, and everybody
gets a million dollar raise all at once, and suddenly you can't
buy food because the food cost a million dollars a pound now,
and you don't have that much money. So you lose money. All
the money you've worked hard to save is gone. In heaven, there's
no inflation. The value of our inheritance
doesn't decay, doesn't fade. It doesn't go away. It lasts
forever because it's the inheritance Christ purchased by his blood.
He paid an infinite price. Right. And it's reserved in heaven. It's secure. Nothing can touch
it. And your name is on it. No one else can take your seat.
You will be there with the Lord Jesus Christ and no one else
will have a prominence one above the other. It's all of grace.
You will have as much attention from the Lord Jesus Christ and
you will see him just as much as every other saint. Sometimes
I've had people on earth that I really wanted to be friends
with, and it kind of aggravated me when they would spend time
with someone else. You're talking to them. You never,
what, I must not be important to you. You must not think much
of me. I don't have anything interesting
to say. And you're kind of like, oh well.
and you go away feeling low, right? But not so with Christ. We will each one lay our head
on his bosom. He will speak to us. We will
see his face, right? That's the truth of it. There
won't be any separation. Lo, I am with you always. He's
not going to leave us. He's going to comfort us. He's
going to speak his word to us personally, individually, just
like he does now by faith. So this inheritance is reserved
for you and you're kept by the power of God through faith. What
does this faith do that God has given to us? It goes to Christ. That's what faith does. And we
ask him to give to us what only he can, eternal life. Lord, give
me eternal life. Give me that water of life. And
so that's what faith does throughout this life. We're living upon
him by faith and we go to him and he says in verse five, you're
kept by the power of God, nothing less than God's power through
faith. God chose that you would glorify
him. He and his power would be glorified
in his grace towards you through this gift of faith. And this
faith ascribes everything to Christ. Nothing that I have is
my own. It's all from the giver. And
he says, this is through faith unto a salvation ready to be
revealed in the last time. We just sang Jesus finished the
work. He paid it all. Then why isn't
it that I don't have it all? Well, you do, but in the course
of your life, you're going to live upon Christ by faith now
because God is glorified, His grace is glorified, His power
is glorified when He upholds you in faith in Christ. And He gives you everything He
told you was true, but you couldn't see, and you lived in hope and
dependence upon all that He said, and that's all you had is God's
Word. And so He magnified His Word
above His own name. Everything hangs on what God
has said concerning His Son. And Christ did it all. And so
this salvation is ready to be revealed in the last time. Now
in our individual lives, when we die, we receive the full inheritance,
except our bodies are dead. But on the last day, when all
of the church is raised up together in their bodies with their souls,
then we will receive a body just like the Lord Jesus Christ has
now in heaven. It will be a holy and a perfect
body and then salvation Christ accomplished will be fully revealed
in the last time. But now what? We live in the
body of this flesh, suffering all kinds of troubles and are
in heaviness, but in our faith, in this gift of God to us, we
rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Even though
our body collapses, even though the world collapses, In fact,
in Psalm 46 it says, even though the mountains are carried into
the midst of the sea, we will not fear. God is our refuge and
a very present help in time of trouble. Isn't it wonderful?
God keeps us by faith, looking to Christ, His life in us, causing
us to believe Him and draw grace from Him in every way, living
upon the work of Christ, finished, and to be given that victory
from Him because He already obtained it for us. I was watching a man trying to
explain the gospel to somebody who was
asking questions. And the woman was concerned that
what the man was saying would leave people out. What about
the people who never heard the gospel? What are you going to
say to them? How can you possibly believe
this? There's a lot of good people
in the world. How can God send them to hell? And so she would ask these questions,
and he kept going back to the fact that, no, it's all what
God has done in Christ, and all those who repent and believe
are given what Christ has done. So the man made it all hinge
on our meeting the conditions. It's all contingent upon you.
And so when she pressed him further, how do these people who lived
and died before Christ ever, ever have a hope? And he said,
well, creation is enough to tell of God's truth. And some people
hear that truth and believe it and some don't. So again, he
made the difference to be the person themselves. Some believe
they meet the requirement and some don't. But he made faith
in doing that. He made faith a work and faith
is not a work. Because faith always sees Christ
having done all the work according to God's will. What's offensive
to people is to tell them God alone can save you. You deserve
to go to hell for your sin against such a holy God. But this message
can't be tolerated by the natural man. Because what it does is
it strips men of all hope in themselves. They lose control
over their own destiny and they find themselves stranded on the
will of God and on the mercy of God in Christ. And they don't
like that. No, I can't, and the woman who
was protesting against this man's poor explanation, wrong explanation
of the gospel, she was protesting and she was saying things like,
I cannot accept a God who would do that. I can't accept a religion
that would be like that. Well, I'm not surprised. You
hate God. The God, the truth of God and
the God who is true, you hate him and that's your problem.
You've denied the only one who knows the truth and speaks the
truth and you've accepted a lie and you've put him on the seat
of inquiry as if you are the judge to determine what he says
is right or wrong. Don't you see the arrogance in
what you're saying and the utter ignorance because you've refused
the God of glory. And so this discussion went on
and it proves, it shows, it's a demonstration of the fact that
by nature we are all opposed to the truth as it's revealed
in scripture. And secondly, that people take
the truth of Scripture and distort it and confuse people and leave
them in their deception, trying to make it acceptable to the
natural man. Don't do it. Start where God
said, elect according to the foreknowledge of God, the Father.
I was listening to a sermon by Todd Nybert. I don't remember
what it was, but he said, if I met someone who had never heard
about God, here's where I would start. Elect. Elect. You know why? Because it takes
away from man all control over their destiny. It puts them in
the hand of a sovereign God, and only until we're there will
we ever look to Christ for everything. Isn't it wonderful that God has
given us this grace to look to Him for everything? Let's pray.
Father, we know that you alone can save us, and we know that
you alone can save us by Jesus Christ, and we would not know
this unless by your Spirit you revealed it to us in our heart
from your Word. And so we pray for this grace
to believe on your Son, that we would bow before you as sinners
under the wrath of God, only able to escape, only able to
please you in Christ our Savior. Help us to trust no other, to
look no further, and to proclaim the glory of no one but Him.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.