Genesis, chapter 46, verse 1.
I want to cover the first four verses here. Just to get the
context for you, Jacob was now 130 years old. He was under the
conviction that his son Joseph had been killed because his other
sons had taken Joseph, cast him into a pit, sold him into Egypt,
and now some 30, well some 20, well I'm not going to calculate
it on the fly, but I think it was around 23 years later. Now
Joseph is in Egypt, he's the governor of Egypt, and he sends
for his father Jacob and all of his family, and Jacob is on
his way to Egypt. If you remember, Jacob had come
originally from Canaan. He was born to Isaac. Isaac had
been a dweller in Canaan, like his father Abraham. Jacob had
never been to Egypt before. He had been to Syria. Remember,
he went to Syria. His mother's brother Laban is
where he went to get his wife. And he actually ended up with
four wives. But he never was in Egypt and
so he was really a man of Canaan who had gone to Syria and had
been brought back out of Syria. And by God's grace now he's on
his way to his son Joseph in Egypt. It was God's will that
brought him to this point in his life. 130 years old. Many things God had done and
kept him. all these years. So let's read
this here. His name is also called Israel, that's his God-given
name. Jacob is the name his father gave to him. Those names have
significance. Israel means prince with God,
and Jacob means deceiver, someone who supplants, someone who cheats.
failure in himself. And so you can see in both of
these names, every believer, God gives us another name. We
in ourselves are sinful. Our nature is sinful. But by
God's grace, He's given us a place in Christ. And in Christ has
received us and called us by this name, a prince with God.
Because in Christ we have access to the Lord. And so it says in
verse 1, of Genesis 46. And Israel took his journey with
all that he had, and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices
unto the God of his father Isaac. So here we see Jacob, whose name
God has given here as Israel, on his journey, stopping at a
place called Beersheba, which was just at the edge of going
from Canaan into Egypt. And he stops there. And when
he stops, he offers sacrifices to God. And this is an act of
worship on Jacob's part, on Israel's part. And think about his circumstances. He had heard that Joseph was
alive. He was overjoyed by that. He's
anticipating going to see Joseph in Egypt. But now he stops. And he stops, it's not revealed
until we read on, but he stops here because he's afraid. And
God knows his heart and God addresses his fear. And so what we're going
to see here is that Jacob stops to worship God as he's transitioning
from Canaan going to Egypt. And in that transition in his
life, now at 130 years old, going down to Egypt, he's afraid. And
he has good reason to be concerned. And so, what we're going to see
is that here in this sermon, Jacob first worships God. He's
afraid of going to Egypt, not just for himself, but all his
family. And God speaks to him and removes his fears. And God speaks to him in this
way and shows him these promises. And so this is what we're going
to see in our own lives. Jacob was about to go where he had
never been before, Egypt. and he was 130 years old, you
would think that that in itself would be a good cause for concern.
People don't travel around too much at that age. But it wasn't
because he was weak that he was afraid in his physical body in
going to Egypt. What he was most concerned about
is he knew what Egypt was. Egypt was a country that was
godless, a country of ungodly people. The people of Egypt served
idols. they lived by the philosophies
of men. So, going to Egypt represented
a significant risk because he knew that his children would
be exposed to idolatry, to the philosophies of this world. In
a sense, Egypt represents this world that we live in. And God
had promised in Genesis chapter 15 verses 13, 14, and 15 that
to Abraham, He spoke to Abraham and He said, now you're going
to have children and they're going to go down to a nation
and they're going to be in bondage to that nation for 400 years.
But I'm going to bring them out. That was what God promised Abraham
in Genesis 15. So God spoke before Even when
Jacob was born, God spoke to Abraham and told him that his
children would go into Egypt and God would bring them out
again. That was God's promise. God cannot fail. His promises
cannot fail. He kept His promise because...
You can just bring it here, sweetheart. He kept His promise because God
always keeps His promise to His people. And it's because God
keeps His promises that we're saved. So that's the first thing
to see. Secondly, God is telling Jacob
in this time here, when He's talking to him, that He also
promises him He's going to bring His people out again. But Jacob
is concerned because Egypt is the land of idolatry, the land
of man's religion, the land of the world's philosophies. It
represents sin and the world. But Joseph was there. Joseph
was there. And you know who Joseph was.
He was Jacob's son. Joseph was the one God had brought
to Egypt in order to save Jacob and his family from the famine,
just like the Lord Jesus was sent by His Father into this
world to save His people from their sins. And so Joseph is
there. And it was God's will to bring
Jacob there because He had promised Abraham that's what He was going
to do. He's going to bring these people, His people, the children
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob down into Egypt. And so Jacob
is afraid because of this. And we read this, we know that
he was afraid because God said in the next part here, and God
spake to Israel in the visions of the night and said, Jacob. And he said, Here am I. And he
said, I am God, the God of thy father. Fear not to go down into
Egypt. So we see that he had to have
been afraid because God addresses his fear. And here we see an
amazing thing, amazing grace. God understood what was in Jacob's
heart. Jacob hadn't evidently talked
about it, or it wasn't revealed in scripture that he had. And
God addresses what was in his heart, his concern, by addressing
his fear. And this is what God does in
scripture for his people. He addresses those hidden things
of our heart that we may not even be aware of. Things that
cause us trouble in our heart, and he addresses them in grace
by speaking to him, by making himself known to Jacob, and by
promising Jacob that he would be with him and so forth. But
I want you to first see here that when Jacob was afraid, when
he was going to a new place he had never been, when he was uncertain,
what did he do? The first thing he did was he
stopped and he offered sacrifices to the God of his father, Isaac.
In other words, he stopped to worship God. He knew that his
life was tied up in the Lord. His life was a gift from God. God himself was his life. And
so he lived his life in faith. Because he lived by faith, when
he was about to go to this place, he didn't know. He was concerned
that when he got there, his children might be influenced in a way
that was an ungodly way, leading to idolatry. And he saw all the
dangers that faced them, spiritually and physically. And the fact
that they would be subject to these people, this nation. Thinking
back of the promise God made to Abraham, all those things
caused him concern. He worshipped God. He came to
God, and he presented himself to God, and it says here, he
came with sacrifices. He offered sacrifices unto the
God of his father Isaac. Now this is the way that a Christian
lives. Christians are always, believers in the Lord Jesus Christ,
always face uncertainty. We always face uncertainty. We're
about to change our job. We're going to go to a new place. Whatever it is, we're about to
start a business. Maybe we're going to get married.
We're going to have children. Things that change in our lives
cause us to think then and there, I need to go to God. It should
happen moment by moment. But these significant things
in our lives always trigger this event in the life of a believer.
I have to go to God. I have to know that the Lord
is going to be with me. He knew that Joseph was in Egypt.
But was God going to be with him? He knew there was corn in
Egypt. They had plenty to eat. There
would be all sorts of provisions. But would God be there? That
was the concern of Jacob when he came here to worship God.
He had been to Beersheba before. When he came from Isaac, his
father, and Rebekah, his mother, to go to find a wife in Syria,
he stopped in Beersheba and worshipped God. So now he's there, again,
worshipping God. He comes to God and he pours
out his needs. He pours out many things. The first thing we see here is
that he made sacrifices to God. And what is a sacrifice for?
Well, we can't be accepted by God without a sacrifice. In ourselves,
we're complete sinners. There's nothing in us that God
could accept. The very best we do is filthy
rags in God's sight. So we can only come to Him by
a sacrifice. And so, He came to God this way
through the sacrifice. That was the first thing He did
there. He offered a sacrifice to God. He faced uncertainty,
he faced a new thing, and he came to God through the sacrifice. What is that sacrifice? Christ,
our Passover, is sacrificed for us. 1 Corinthians 5-7. So we
know that this has to do with coming to God in worship through
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only way a sinner
can come to God. We can't come to God in any other
way. Is there another way that a sinner can come to God? Didn't
the Lord Jesus Christ Himself say, I am the way? that no man
comes to the Father but by me. He's the only way to God because
he himself was sacrificed for us. That's what a believer believes.
That's what we rest on and trust. And so Jacob is going along and
he comes to this place of uncertainty and fear and he stops to worship
God and he brings his sacrifice because the only way we can come
to God and be accepted by God and find favor and blessing and
guidance and anything from God is by coming to Him in the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the way we always come.
Every time we come, Lord, I am such a sinner. And I know that
it were by Your justice, if You were to consider only me, I deserve
all of Your wrath. I deserve nothing but wrath.
No blessing, no favor, to be rejected only. But here, we're
taught, in this act of Jacob's, to worship God, he comes first
to worship God. And he offers sacrifices to be
accepted, to be heard. And this is the way the believers
come to him. We come by Jesus Christ, and
then he thanks him. He comes to thank him. To acknowledge
that God had preserved him all these years. And in acknowledging
that God had preserved him, he's not only thanking him, but he's
recognizing that it was God who worked all things in his life
to bring him to the good that he's now bringing him to. Isn't
that what God does? He not only quiets our fears,
he causes us to come to him through the Lord Jesus Christ, but then
he teaches us that in coming to him as his people, all things
are working together for our good. It causes us to trust Him,
doesn't it? If He accepts sinners for Christ's
sake, then we can come to Him as sinners, coming to Him in
the Lord Jesus Christ, trusting Christ only. And if He works
all things together for the good of His people, Then we can come
to him trusting him that he will work all things together for
our good. And so this is the way Jacob came. Acknowledging
his need. And he not only came for those
reasons, but he came to know if this was God's will. He wanted
to know that God was in this thing of going to Egypt. He didn't
want to leave Canaan. Canaan was the place of promise.
God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob their children
would be given this land. And he wasn't going to leave
the land God had promised him. This was his inheritance, the
inheritance of his children. This is the land that represented
that heavenly rest that we would receive as believers because
God would, through the Lord Jesus Christ, obtain that land of salvation
for us through his life and death. And so Jacob comes, acknowledging
that, I don't want to leave Canaan unless it's your will. And so
he asks God for these things. And God speaks to him. And I
want you to notice what God says to Jacob to alleviate his fears
and to comfort him and to comfort us as believers. It says, And
God spoke to Israel first in the visions of the night, and
he said to him, Jacob, Jacob. He calls him by his name. What
does that do? It tells you immediately that
God is trying to communicate to Jacob, I know you. I know
you. Remember when those men stood
before Jesus in judgment in Matthew chapter 7? And they presented
their best works to Him and He said, Depart from Me, you that
work iniquity. I never knew you. I never knew
you. But here, God speaks to Jacob
and says, Jacob, Jacob. He knows Him, doesn't He? And
in 2 Timothy 2, verse 19, it says, the Lord, this is the foundation
of God, is sure because the Lord knoweth those that are His. And
the promise of the New Covenant is that God said, I will be a
God to them, and they shall be my people. I know them. I know
them by name. Look at Isaiah 43. This is emphasized throughout
scripture, but this is speaking here of how God knows His people. And how He knows them in a saving
way. Isaiah 43, verse 1, it says,
But now, thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, He
created us, and He that formed thee, O Israel, fear not. For I have redeemed thee. I have
called thee by thy name. Thou art mine." This is amazing. What has God done for His people?
Well, we know He created all men and Adam. Is that what He's
speaking about here? Creating our bodies? He's not
speaking only about that. He's speaking about the creation
that He talked about in Ephesians 2.10 where He says, We are His
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. So, this is that new creation. Everyone who's in Christ is made
a new creation. God has created His people as
a temple in which He dwells. A body that's one with the body
of His Son, the Church. And He's redeemed them. He's
not only created them, but He's formed them for Himself and redeemed
them. And therefore, He tells them, fear not. I've called you. I've called you by your name.
Called you with a call that you could not resist. Drawing you
to the Lord Jesus Christ so that you would see all of your salvation
in Him. Drawing you with the cords of
a man. With the bands of a man. With
the cords of love, as it says in Hosea 11.4. And so here the
Lord is comforting His people. I've created you for Myself. I've redeemed you. I've called
you. You're Mine. You're mine. Will God lose any
that are His? Any that He's redeemed? Any that
He's called? Any that He knew and created
in Christ Jesus? He cannot. If God allowed Israel
to go down into Egypt, and then left Him there to die, and didn't
bring them out, He would fail His promise. He Himself would,
as God, would fail in His Word. He would be a liar. He would
be a failure. God can't fail. He can't lie.
And so, we're saved because God has promised. And so, what the
Lord is doing here for Jacob, He's underscoring the fact that
He knows him, and because He knows him in this relationship,
that He's not going to leave him. And so He goes on here in
Genesis chapter 46 and He says, Jacob, Jacob. And Jacob said
this. What was Jacob's response when he came to worship God and
offered his sacrifice, which represents coming to God through
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And God speaks to him. That's
communion. That's where I come to God by
Christ and God speaks and makes himself known to me and the first
thing he says is, I know you. I know you by name. I've created
you. I've redeemed you. I've called you, you're mine.
And here he says, Jacob says, here am I. Here am I. This is an attitude of submission.
When we worship God and come to Him in our fear and God meets
us in His grace and He knows our fear and He reveals Himself
to us in Christ, when we come to Him, the Lord Jesus Christ,
what do we do? We say what Paul said, Lord,
what do you want me to do? Here, Jacob said, here am I.
Remember when God called Samuel as a little boy, He spoke to
him, Samuel. And Eli told Samuel, if He calls you again, say, Speak,
Lord, for your servant heareth. That's what this attitude of
submission is. This is what worship does. When we come to God through
the Lord Jesus Christ and see Him in His saving work, see the
perfections of our God in His mercy and grace and His wisdom,
and His sovereign power to save us from our own sins. Then we
say, here am I. I want what you want. And Jacob
was, if you want me to go to Egypt, I'll go. If you do not
want me to go, I don't want to go. I want to do your will. That's
what he was saying, here am I. And the Lord said, notice, I
am God. When God said that to Abraham,
He says, I am God Almighty. God Almighty. What does it mean
to be Almighty? It means there's nothing he can't
do. God all-powerful. God omnipotent. And he says this,
the God of thy father, Isaac and Abraham. And remember what
Romans chapter 4 says about Abraham. When he believed God, he was
fully persuaded, notice, that he was able to do what he had
said. That God was able to do what
he had promised. Look at Romans chapter 4. Because
this is what God is doing here for Jacob. When he's worshipping
God, coming to him by the Lord Jesus Christ, thanking him for
preserving him all these years, asking him for his guidance,
and hearing his word when he speaks to him, and calling him
by his name. And God is speaking to him. He's refreshing for Jacob
what he told, what he convinced Abraham in Romans chapter 4.
It says in verse 18, "...who against hope, all human hope,
He believed, Abraham believed in hope, in expectancy. That
he might become the father of many nations according to that
which was spoken by God. So shall thy seed be. Speaking about Christ and all
the people the Lord would save through him. That's who he's
talking about here. So shall thy seed be. Not the physical
descendants of Abraham, but the descendants of Abraham by faith. And so he says in verse 19, "...and
being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body, now dead, when
he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness
of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise
of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory
to God." Because that's what faith does. Faith gives glory
to God. Faith ascribes to God all ability,
all faithfulness, all righteousness and goodness in order to accomplish
his will. And he says, giving glory to
God, and this is what he was persuaded of, and being fully
persuaded. Not that he was persuaded of
an experience he had, not that he was persuaded that he would
be faithful to God, or that he was faithful, but he was fully
persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform,
and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Abraham
looked to the Lord. God, my salvation, and he found
in him everything, all of his salvation, in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And that's what he was fully
persuaded of. And God counted the one he looked to, Christ,
as his own righteousness. And so he does with every believer.
And so back in Genesis 46, he said, I am God. God Almighty. God all wise. God everywhere present. The God
of thy father Abraham. That's a statement of a covenant
God. God who made a covenant with
Abraham. He wouldn't break it. He's going to keep it. The one
he made with Abraham is the one he's making with Jacob. And so
he says, fear not to go down to Egypt. And when God says,
fear not, then we have no cause for fear. Don't be afraid to
go into Egypt. If you're going anywhere, be
sure that you're going at God's with God's will, that you're
going with God's promises, going in Christ. He says, for I there,
I will there make of thee a great nation. What is this promise?
He's not going to lose anything. He's going to fulfill his covenant.
I'm going to make a great nation of you. I'm going to fulfill
my promise. And I will go down with you. I'll go down with thee into Egypt
and I will also bring thee up again. You're not going to lose
anything. God's going to do this. It's His promise. You know when
the Israelites got to Egypt, you know what they did? It says
that they began to serve idols. And they were so wicked that
God told them, you need to put away your idols. And he said
because they didn't, his fury was, he said he was going to
destroy them for their idolatry. But then he didn't, because he
remembered his promises. Because of his own faithfulness
to his own word, for the glory of his own name, he preserved
these people and brought them out of Egypt despite, in spite
of their sin. Because God was faithful, because
he was able. And so, Jacob is hearing these
words from God. It's a great comfort. Don't be
afraid to go down to Egypt. This is in God's will. I will
there make of thee a great nation. I'm going to bless you. Isn't
that God's promise? He's going to bless us for Christ's
sake. And I'll go down with thee, and I will also surely bring
thee up again. There's nothing that's going
to fail of all that God said to him. God's going to keep His
word. and Joseph shall put his hand upon your eyes." I think
this is referring to the time when Jacob was going to die,
when Joseph would put his hands on his father's eyes when he
died. He's going to die in Egypt. But Jacob knew that because God
promised, he was going to bring him again to Canaan. And so when
he died, he told Joseph, his son, bring me up again to Canaan. Don't bury me here in Egypt. And so after he died, Joseph
took him with all the big A group of people that came out of Egypt
for the burial of Jacob, his father. Because Jacob's heart
was in the promises of God. It was in the inheritance God
promised to him. And in Hebrews chapter 11 it
says that he wasn't looking for a physical land. He was looking
for a heavenly Canaan, a heavenly blessing. And so all these things,
we see this faithfulness of God to Jacob, and in so seeing it
to him, we see our own lives as believers and God's faithfulness
to us. When we face an uncertainty,
when we face a new thing, we're to go to the Lord and do what
God has taught us to do, to worship Him. What does it mean to worship
God? Have you ever wondered that?
I know it's important. But what does it actually mean
to worship God? I began to look through the scripture,
what this means, because this is what Jacob is doing here.
True worshippers, according to the Lord Jesus, worship the Father
in spirit and in truth. Remember when the Samaritan woman
met Jesus at the well and she asked Him, are we to worship
God in this mountain, in Samaria, or in Jerusalem? And she thought,
it's either here or it's there. And Jesus said, no, it's not
in a place. We worship God in spirit and
in truth. We can't worship God with material
things. We don't bring... We don't... It's amazing how we as people
have changed. We naturally think of doing things,
and physical things, and material things. But God says, the Lord
Jesus Himself said that we worship God in spirit. In spirit. How can we worship God in spirit?
Can we like concentrate, get in a dark room and a quiet place
and concentrate and work it up and somehow produce this worship
to God? Is that what it means? Well,
to worship God in spirit has to mean we worship God by the
spirit of God. Because we are spiritually dead
unless God gives us life. We can't worship God as dead
in sins, can we? And that's why Jesus told Nicodemus
in John 3 that if you haven't been born of the Spirit of God,
then you can't see, you can't enter the Kingdom of God. You
can't know God. And so you had to be born of
the Spirit of God. And when Nicodemus asked Jesus,
what does that mean? How can that be? I'm an old man.
He taught him that being born of the Spirit of God is God's
work. He does it at his own pleasure. And when he does it, he points
us to Christ crucified. Because the believer who looks
to Christ according to Jesus, talking to Nicodemus in John
3, is one who looks to Christ and Him crucified as the Israelites
looked to that serpent lifted up on the pole, is the believer
who has everlasting life. That's the one who's been born
of God. The work of the Spirit of God in us produces faith in
Christ, a heart faith, in Christ and Him crucified for us And
then we walk in that faith, and that's the evidence that we've
been born of God. We don't produce it. We don't
make it happen. God does it. How does He do it?
By the hearing of the Gospel. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by the Word of God. So we worship God in spirit,
first of all, because we've been born of the Spirit of God. The
Spirit of God and of Christ dwell in us. If we don't have the Spirit
of Christ, we're not gods. That's what it says in Romans
8, verses 9-11. We can't be the Lord's unless
God's Spirit is in us. But when God's Spirit is in us,
then He points us to Christ and Him crucified as sinners to find
all of our salvation in Him. And there we worship God. In
spirit, by the Spirit of God. Him enabling us, in our spirit,
to worship God. By faith in Him. So there's no
worship of God But what the Spirit of God enables us to do, according
to Jesus. And He said we worship God in
the Spirit and in truth. In truth. A lot of people claim
to worship God in the world. They've always done that. But
no one can worship God unless they worship God in truth. And
what is that truth? Well, it has to be the truth
that God has spoken of His Son in Scripture, right? Isn't that
what Jesus said? I am not only the way, but I
am the truth. I am the life. And so, to worship
God in spirit and truth means we worship God according to the
revelation He's given us of His Son. of His Son. And what is worship really? Isn't
it coming to God? Isn't it coming to God to be
accepted of Him? To honor Him for who He is? So we worship God because He
is God. We worship Him because He is
sovereign, almighty. That He's holy in all of His
ways. We worship God as He is. If we don't believe God's sovereign,
we're not worshiping God in truth. If we don't believe that we're
sinners, we're not worshipping God in truth. If we don't believe
that we can only be accepted by God for what He finds in Christ,
we're not worshipping Him in truth. If we come to God as man's
religion says, I'm going to come to God in order to be accepted
by Him, and I'm going to do certain things, and by doing those things
God's going to accept me, we're not worshipping God. We're coming
to Him with a lie in our hands, because we're not agreeing with
God about ourselves. There's a place in scripture
where it contains all these things. Look at Hosea, I'm sorry, Micah,
the book of Micah. It's a little book, so you might
have trouble finding it, and I'll guide you as soon as I get
to it myself. Micah is after Jonah, and it's before Nahum
and Habakkuk. It's kind of a hard book to find.
But if you can find it in Micah chapter 6, I want to read these
words to you in Micah chapter 6 and just give you a little
bit of an explanation. Micah chapter 6. In Micah chapter
6, the question is raised in verse 6. How can I come to God? And that's what it means to worship
God. We come to the Lord to worship
Him. You wouldn't enter the presence
of a noble person. In this world, a king, let's
say, without doing the proper thing to be accepted, would you?
If you do, you would come presumptuously and irreverently and you would
be rejected. How much more God, who is holy
and knows all about us and knows us in our thoughts and our words
and all that we are. And we are dependent upon Him
for our very life and breath and eternal salvation. How are
you going to come to this God? He says in verse 6 of Micah 6,
he says, Isn't that what Jacob is doing and all of us do as
people when we come to God? We're coming to God and bowing
ourselves before Him. How can I do this? I'm a sinner.
God cannot look upon sin. How can I come? He asks the question and then
he tells us how not to come. Or with ten thousands of rivers
of oil? Because that was the way in the
ceremonial law God taught Israel to come. Come with a sacrifice,
with a ram, a burnt offering, with oil, these things. And so
the prophet is asking this question. It's a rhetorical question because
the answer to every one of these questions is no, no, no. Can
I come with a ram, a burnt offering? No, that's not going to do it.
How about ten thousand rivers of oil? Or how about thousands
of burnt offerings of rams? No. No. Shall I give my firstborn? Now this has got to be the very
best I can possibly produce. My firstborn? Shall I give my
firstborn for my transgression? The fruit of my body, for the
sin of my soul. You can see that the comer, the
one coming to God, is coming in order to be accepted. In light
of his sin. Because he's coming with all
these sacrifices. Do I come with this? With the other thing? No. Do I come with my works? Of course
not. And then he answers the question.
He has showed thee, O man, what is good. And what doth the Lord
require of thee? but to do justly, and to love
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." Now, when we read this
thing, when we read that verse, we might immediately imagine
that the explanation given here is, this is the way you come
to God. You do what's right, you walk humbly, and you love
mercy, and you walk humbly before people. And it's interesting
because I was looking about this thing of worship and one of the
things I did, I was curious, I know this sounds very strange,
but What does a typical religion in this world believe about coming
to God? Now, these are quotations I got
about what Islam means. I wouldn't even mention this,
but it's become really popular nowadays to talk about Islam
and Muslims and these kinds of things. So let me give you just
some excerpts here of what they said. This was their own words. Islam teaches that the merit
of man's actions depends on his intention. And they teach that
men do what they do in hope of earning reward from Almighty
God. And they also teach that they
can reach out to God at any time without an intermediary, without
a mediator. And they also believe that all
of their actions can become spiritual and be rewarded by God. So listen
to what they're saying here. They do what they do in order
to be accepted by God. They think that this is what
the Muslim faith believes. That they do what they do, they
live the way they do in order that God might accept them. That's
the very question being asked and answered here in Micah 6,
verses 6-8. How can I come to God? By sacrifices? No. How about a thousand sacrifices? Ten thousand rivers? No. How
about my own child if I sacrifice? No. And then the next question
is, well, what about all my works? Can I do certain things? No,
what about your sin? How are you going to pay for
that? All these things are showing us what men believe. And here's another quote. Salvation
in Islam is connected with doing good deeds and refraining from
bad ones. One who excels in goodness will
be rewarded generously, but one whose evil outweighs his virtue
will be punished. What do you call that? That's
salvation by works, isn't it? But in Galatians chapter 3 it
says that faith is not of works. That the law is not of faith.
That our own personal obedience counts not only for nothing before
God, it actually makes it worse when we try to come to God by
our own works, our own goodness. And so, Islam would say, well,
we believe that Jesus was a prophet. We believe that Muhammad was
a better prophet, but he's the one who had the truth. But what
they show is that they completely reject what Christ said. I am
the way, he said, I am the truth, and no man comes to the Father
but by me. But we don't need an intermediary,
they said. Oh yes you do, because you're
a sinner. because they don't want to admit that they're a
sinner and God is holy and He can't accept sinners. And so
that's what Mike is saying here. How can I come? And he answers
it by saying, He has showed thee, O man, what is good, and what
does the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God." What does it mean then? If it
doesn't mean doing good in order to be accepted by God, as we
might think, to do justly, well that just means to do what's
right. To love mercy, I've got to show mercy to others. And
to walk humbly with my God, I've got to be very humble. Can't
be proud. God's going to accept me if I'm
humble enough. All those things are simply a denial of the truth
of the gospel. Why did the Lord Jesus Christ
come? Did He not come to save sinners?
Isn't that what Paul said in 1 Timothy 1.15? This is a faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation. That Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners. And the Apostle Paul said, of
whom I am chief. There's a man who knew that his
case was a desperate, helpless case unless God did something. And he says he's done it in his
son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And in Romans 4 verse 5 he says,
To him that does not work, but believes on him who justifies
the ungodly, the reverse of godly, that man's faith is counted for
righteousness. And so it's completely upside
down the way we naturally think. To do justly, to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with our God is not what we can do in order
to make God accept us. Notice how he puts it here in
verse 8. He has showed thee, O man, what is good, and what
does the Lord require thee but to do justly, to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God. We're coming for acceptance with
God. We want to walk with God. It's
not about our actions with men that make us righteous before
God. God requires a sacrifice, but
nothing we can bring can make that, can provide the sacrifice
that God will accept to us for our sins. He had to provide it
himself. So to do justly here, is to side
with God against myself. That's what justice is. Justice,
in God's eyes, is what we need to do. It's what God thinks is
right. That's just, right? It's not
what we think. And what does God say? That He's
the just God and He Himself justifies the ungodly. How? How does He
do this? He justifies the ungodly through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. He justifies sinners on
the basis of justice satisfied, of righteousness fulfilled. Not
in themselves personally, but in their Redeemer, in their surety,
in their substitute. No man can come before God expecting
to be justified in what he is. No one has ever been justified
or ever will be justified before God by what he is or does or
thinks or says or what he might become someday. Not because I
raised my hand in church. Not because I made a decision
for Jesus. Not because I had an experience
and I felt a warm feeling and felt connected to God. None of
those things make any difference. None of those things can put
away my sin. None of them can fulfill God's law. Only one thing
can make us acceptable before God. It's what God thinks. of
the sacrifice He made in His Son, and what Christ gave in
His obedience in making that sacrifice. That's the righteousness
of God. That's the only righteousness
in which a sinner may appear before God, and to do justly
is to come before God and admit, I am a sinner and nothing at
all. But if God doesn't receive me in Christ, then I'm lost,
and deservingly so. And so to do justly means to
admit with God, I'm guilty before God. I'm corrupt, I'm condemned,
and I'm helpless. But God is both just and the
justifier of the ungodly. And to love mercy, what is that?
What is the mercy of God that we love? Who is the mercy of
God? How did God show us mercy? Isn't
the Lord Jesus? Look at Romans chapter 3. I want to take you to this verse.
What is the mercy of God here that we love? The mercy of God,
according to this, is in a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. He says
in Romans chapter 3, in verse 23, all have sinned. and come short of the glory of
God. There you are, all of man's religion. You're put against
the wall. God has already sentenced you. This is your state before God.
You've sinned. You've come short of the glory
of God. All that you do in order to be accepted is going to fail. It's going to fail you. And there
he says in verse 24, being justified. To be justified means God in
the court of heaven has concluded No sin. All that this person
has ever done is right. Being justified, not by our works,
but freely. Not for reasons in us, but by
His grace. Not for anything in us, but through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. You see how God justifies
a sinner? And then he says in verse 25,
listen, this is where the mercy of God is, whom God has set forth
to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. What is the
propitiation? That's the mercy seat. That's
where God poured out the blood of his son in the throne, on
the throne of heaven, in order to make satisfaction for the
sins of his people. And to love mercy means to come
to God, agreeing with God as a sinner, that I'm a sinner and
agreeing with God that in Christ he's received full satisfaction,
a fulfillment of his righteousness, for me the sinner, and to love
it that way. I don't want to be saved any
other way. I love to be saved this way.
I love the mercy in Christ. In Luke chapter 1 it says that
God performed the mercy when he sent Christ into the world
that he promised to his fathers. To the fathers. He performed
it. And this is the mercy we love. The mercy Christ accomplished
in his own propitiation for us by his blood. And to walk humbly
with God. What does this mean? Well, it
means to walk according to the truth of the gospel. I'm a great
sinner. Nothing at all. That's what a
believer believes. I didn't work to produce this
righteousness before God. God gave it to me. He worked
it out. Christ did it. And I admit that
if it weren't for Christ, if it weren't for God accepting
me for Christ's sake, I'd receive everything I deserve as a sinner.
That's to walk humbly. It's to walk honestly as a sinner
before God that all of my salvation and hope for glory is in what
God thinks of His Son. and is to come to him and bring
this to him in worship. In Isaiah 43, look at this, in
Isaiah 43, I'll just point this out to you, and then go back
and conclude from Genesis 46. In Isaiah 43, he says this, in
verse 25, I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions
for mine own sake. and will not remember thy sins."
Why did God blot out our sins and transgressions? Because He
would fulfill His promise He made to us in Christ before the
foundation of the world. And then look at verse 26, what
He tells us to do. Put me in remembrance, put me
in remembrance, and let us plead together. What is He saying?
You come to me bringing in the hand of faith the truth of Christ
and Him crucified, how He has blotted out our sins for His
own sake. When we were sinners and had
no standing, and God brought us to Himself through the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ, put me in remembrance of Him. And
in putting me in remembrance of Him, let us plead together,
declare thou that thou mayest be justified." What are we going
to say? I'm not going to say anything.
I'm going to say the Lord Jesus Christ is my answer. He's my
advocate. He's my propitiation. My righteousness. He's my redemption. My wisdom.
He's everything. My sanctification. My holiness.
He's everything. And that's what God wants us.
That's the only way as sinners we can be accepted by Him. Is
to come to Him through the Lord Jesus Christ. And looking to
Christ, putting Him in remembrance. God doesn't need to be reminded.
But He loves to hear it from us, because He's given us this
faith to bring it. To walk humbly with our God is
to come to Him the same way we first came to Him. As you have
received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him. How did we receive Him? As a
dead dog sinner, ruined in our sin, trusting Christ only. That's
the way you're to come, all the time. When you've achieved That
level of spirituality that just makes you feel you're separate
from everyone else. Humble yourself and come back
the way you first came. As a dead dog sinner, only in
Christ. That's the only way we can be
accepted. This is the way, not by bringing things to God, but
by bringing in our hand of faith what God has put there, that
He's given Christ His Son for His people, sinners, and accepted
them in Him. And here Jacob is at this transition
in his life, and he comes to worship God. I don't want to
go unless you're with me. I have to have your presence.
And God says, I'll be with you. I'll bless you. I'll bring you
here again. I'm going to fulfill my word." And so Jacob was convinced,
like his father Abraham, he was fully persuaded that what God
had promised, he was able also to perform because he is faithful. And that's our hope. Our salvation
is that God will do what He promised. Isn't it? Do you ever think that
your salvation depends on you? That somehow at the end of the
day, ultimately, it's going to come down to how you perform,
how you think, what you understand? Well, I feel for you because
that's the attitude of arrogance and ignorance. There's only one
thing that can save us. It's what God did in Christ.
And the conviction of this is God-given persuasion. Let's pray.