In Acts chapter 13, the Apostle
Paul and Barnabas were sent by the Spirit of God to preach the
gospel. And they came to a synagogue
in Antioch, and when they were there it was the Sabbath day.
And they entered into that synagogue on the Sabbath day and preached
a sermon to the Jews. And we want to look at that.
We want to see the significance of what's said there in Acts
chapter 13. Let's pray. Dear Father, we pray that you
would open to us what your Spirit has revealed in the Scriptures
here, what Paul preached, what you sent him to preach by the
Lord Jesus Christ concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray,
Lord, we would hear, we would be converted, we would believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and live our entire life depending
entirely upon his grace and thankful for it too, worshiping you because
of it, because of your goodness and your grace in saving us from
our sins. Help us, dear Lord, not to turn
away from this message, to turn away from your goodness, to turn
away from the Lord Jesus in disinterested indifference, but to hang our
whole life, our eternal souls, on what you've said. And depending
upon Christ, our Lord, we pray, Lord, you would save us from
all of our sins and bring us to glory. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. I'm going to summarize without
reading these verses to you, and I'm going to get to verse
38 and 39 where I want to focus our attention. So, as I mentioned,
Paul and Barnabas were sent by the Spirit of God. If you read
the first verses of the chapter, they were separated to the work
God gave them to do. And the work God gives His people
to do is to preach Christ and Him crucified. Paul, in 1 Corinthians
1, said, Christ didn't send me to baptize, but to preach the
gospel. And then in 1 Corinthians 2,
he said, I determined not to know anything among you, save
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So that's what Paul did here.
He preached Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But he did it
to these Jews. And the Jews had invited him
to speak in verses 14 and 15. They read from the Law and the
Prophets. And so they invited Paul to speak and he opened up
the Scriptures to them. They had been reading from the
Law and the Prophets and so Paul rehearsed their history, how
God had blessed that nation. And in spite of the blessings
of God on that nation, how they had turned from Him. And they
had not understood a message of Scripture concerning Christ.
And so they had themselves actually put Christ to death. And so,
in this sermon, he says in verse 26, to you is the word of this
salvation sent to these people who were of those who killed
Christ. That's how guilty they were.
That's how ungodly they were. Though they read the scripture
and they met in the name of God, they didn't know God. They didn't
know His will. They didn't know His ways. They
didn't know His Son. And they didn't know His Son's
work. But he uses David in this particular scripture to reveal
that scripture had always been speaking of Christ. God raised
up David when he was nothing. He was taking care of his father's
sheep. God found him and said, he's a man after my own heart.
And he said, he will do all my will. And that perfectly describes
the Lord Jesus Christ. He was taking care of his father's
sheep. He's a man, the only man, who's truly after God's own heart.
And he would do all God's will. So I want to point these things
out to you because when Paul told them that they were of the
people who killed the Lord Jesus because they didn't understand,
they had not received the word of God, didn't know it. And yet
God fulfilled His promise, His eternal will, to save His people
from their sins by sending His Son. And when He did, He put
Him to death on the cross in their place, raised Him from
the dead in triumph over sin and death, and exalted Him to
the throne of glory. And now I want to pick it up
in verse 38. Be it known unto you therefore,
considering all these things, be it known unto you therefore,
men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you
the forgiveness of sins." Notice the words here, through this
man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. One man,
forgiveness of sins of all these people. And then he says in verse
39, And by him, by this one man, the Lord Jesus Christ, all that
believe are justified from all things from which you could not
be justified by the law of Moses. So I want to talk to you today.
I've entitled this message, Justification by This Man. And I want to address
you at a level, hopefully, that even the children can understand.
What does it mean to justify? Have you ever used that word?
Have you ever spoken about yourself as someone
who justifies? Or have you ever had someone
say that someone justified me? We don't usually talk that way,
do we? But we actually do it every day of our lives. We're
always making excuses for ourselves when we are asked why we did
something, especially when we do something wrong. We tend to
defend ourselves, don't we? We defend ourselves. I didn't
do the wrong. Or if it's something we were
supposed to do, I did the right. And that's called justifying
ourselves. When we say with our mouth that
we did no wrong and that we did what was right, that's called
justifying ourselves. We justify our actions. We explain
to people why we did what we did. One time I was at work and
there was a meeting called when I was an engineer and I didn't
go to the meeting because I had work I thought was more important
to do. So I came late to the meeting and my boss's boss asked
me, why didn't you come on time? I said because I had more important
work to do. I justified why I wasn't at the
meeting. I explained to him, tried to
explain with an excuse of why I didn't come to the meeting.
But he didn't think too much of that answer, even though I
thought it would be a good answer. He didn't accept it. So he didn't
accept my justification of myself. So do you understand what that
is, that word justify? It means when someone is made
to appear and to give an answer for themselves, they try to defend
themselves as having done no wrong or to claim that they've
done right. They justify themselves. We do
that all the time, don't we? Just about every day. Why did
you do that, son? I was thinking, and you make
up a story. Or maybe you have a sincere reason.
I remember one time I was little, four or five years old. My mom,
in those days, there wasn't anything like a clothes dryer. And so
she would squeeze the clothes out in a washer that had these
two rollers. And you would pinch the clothes,
and then you would unfold them, and you would hang them on a
rope. with these things called clothespins. It sounds prehistoric, but it's actually
not that long ago. In the 60s, that's the only way.
For years, my mom did all the laundry that way, even when I
was in junior high school. And she also had no cloth diapers,
I know paper diapers, but only cloth diapers. So there was always
stuff on the line in the yard. Sheets and diapers and all of
our clothes. My mom did all the laundry when I was four or five
years old. But we were out playing and I loved to play with my brothers
and sisters so bad that When she came out to look at the laundry
hanging on the line and it was dirty, she called us over. She
said, who got the dirt on these sheets? Because we were running
through these things hanging on the line. And you have to
imagine it's like curtains hanging from a rope in the yard. And
you're running through as a child. You're playing hide and seek
or chase or tag or something. And you push them out of the
way and you run through there. Well, they were my mom's freshly
washed clothes, and they got dirty, and so she wanted to find
out which of us boys had done it, because we didn't have any
sisters in those days. And so she lined us all up. She said,
which one of you got dirt on these sheets? I don't know. I don't know. Every one of us,
to a child, we all defended ourselves. I don't know who did it. Finally,
I realized she said she was going to give us all a whipping until
we told the truth and found out who it was that did this. So,
I hadn't done it, at least I didn't think I had, but I wanted to
get back to playing, so I said, I did it, Mom. And so she gave
me a spanking. And she let my brothers go. So
I tried to justify myself. I didn't try to justify myself,
but I confessed to doing something that I didn't think I had done
wrong. But my mom wanted us to give
an answer. She wanted us to explain why we had done something. We
normally do that when we justify ourselves. We try to defend ourselves.
So do you understand now what the word justify means? It means
that we try to defend ourselves against the wrong, against an
accusation of doing wrong, and we also claim that we've done
right. We give an answer for ourselves to the one we're made
to appear before. Now, I would like to give you
more illustrations in my own life, but I'd rather give you
illustrations from Scripture, what it means to justify. First
thing you see in Scripture is that whenever God justifies someone,
when He speaks of justification, He's always talking about someone
who's made to appear before Him. before God. God has a law. He gave the law in the beginning
to Adam and Eve, then to Noah, and finally to Moses. He's always
got, throughout scripture, God's telling us what to do. That's
God's requirements on us. And there's always these consequences
if we don't do what God has said. Just like with our parents. If
they tell us to do something and we don't do it, then there's
consequences. Or if they tell us not to do
something and we don't obey them, but we break their laws, then
there's consequences, aren't there? Mom says, do the dishes,
and I ignore them. I've got to do them the next
time. Maybe I have to do them for a week straight. Or if my
dad says, don't play with matches, and I play with matches, something's
going to happen to teach me not to play with matches. Those are
the consequences. God has a law. And he is going
to require each one of us, you and me, whether you're a man
or a woman or a boy or a girl, to appear before Him and give
an answer for ourselves. And He has His law and He's going
to use His law as the standard by which He holds us accountable.
He's going to go down that list and He's going to compare us
to what He's told us to do to see if we are guilty or if we've
done right. And we're going to be expected
to give an answer. to God for what He has told us
what we ought to be, how we're supposed to act and think and
do. And now, Scripture is full of God's requirements. But in
Scripture, God teaches us that the reason God gave us these
rules wasn't in order to make us right. And this is completely
backward from our thinking. When Mom and Dad tell us what
to do, we're expected to do it, aren't we? And when we don't
do it, we're in trouble. But later on, after a while,
we learn to do it, at least partially, even though we never do it perfectly.
But God is different from our moms and dads. He holds us responsible
exactly to His law. If we didn't do it all the time,
and if we didn't do it perfectly, if we didn't completely do His
law, then He holds us responsible as if we've broken all of His
law. In James 2.10 it says that if
we've broken one law, we've broken them all. So we're made to appear
before God. Now, in our lives, sometimes
in our conscience, a lot of times in our conscience, we're convicted
of things we've done wrong. And maybe, by God's grace, we've
been convicted of things we've done wrong against God. A lot
of times our parents tell us what's right and what's wrong,
and when we don't do what they say, then in our conscience,
God reminds us that we're doing what's wrong. In a sense, at
that time in our mind, we're appearing before God in judgment. God holds us accountable in our
mind, in our conscience, to give an answer. Why? Why did you do
that? And all we can say is, I don't
know. I don't know why I did it. I'm bad. And that realization
is the purpose for which God gave us His law. To show us what
we truly are. That we are actually wrong. That
we haven't done any right before God. When you grow up and your
mom and dad say, now I don't want you to do that thing. Maybe
it's something really bad. Don't steal. When you go to the
store, don't steal. Or they tell you, now don't you
get drunk, or don't you drive your car too fast, or whatever
it is. And you find yourself, you're
a teenager, you're out doing these things. The very thing
they told you not to do, you're doing it. What is that supposed
to teach you? It's supposed to teach you, by
God's grace, what you truly are. A sinner. And that you have to
appear before God as a sinner and give an answer for everything
in your life. And how are you going to do that?
We stand before our parents all the time, don't we? We stand
there and we try to give an answer for ourselves or to our friends
at school or to our teachers or whatever we do. We try to
give an answer. Some other grown-ups sometimes ask us, what are you
doing? Some kids showed up at our subdivision
and they were doing some things. I asked them, why are you guys
here? And they gave me some excuse of why they were there, why they
should be there, when they weren't supposed to be there. We're always
doing that. But we cannot answer God, can we? Can you think of
how you would answer God for the wrong you've done? Do you
have an explanation that would satisfy God? If God is holy,
if God is true, now we aren't true, but God is true. And when
God asks us, when He looks at us to see if we've done right
or wrong, what does He do? Does He stretch the truth? Does
He say, well, He didn't really mean to do that and excuse us? As if that's... He takes what
we really meant to do and He ignores it and says that we actually
did what's right. Does God act that way? Does He
stretch the truth? Does He hide what we did? No, not at all. God actually searches out our
motives. He looks at the reasons that
we do things. And He looks at what we do and
what we say. And He keeps a record in His own mind of everything
we've ever thought or said or done. And He's going to hold
us accountable. And we can't give an answer because
we're guilty. And we have no strength in ourselves
because we're sinners to do what God requires. And so we can't justify ourselves
before God. And there's many men in scripture
who give us an example of what this is like. First I want to
consider some people who tried to come before God and appear
before God in order to be justified, but they were not justified.
They failed to be justified before God. There were two men. Jesus gave an example in Luke
18. Two men went to the temple. And
men would go to the temple in order to do the things God required. They would go there to worship.
They would bring a sacrifice. They would pray. And they were
supposed to keep God's laws. Well, two men came to the temple,
Jesus said. And one man came there and he
trusted that in himself he was good and righteous. And so how
did he pray? Well, he prayed like this, God,
I thank you that I'm not like other men are. Like, even like
this man over here in the back. This publican, this politician,
this tax collector who's a lying cheat. I'm not like him. I tithe. I give everything. I do all these
things. I pray. I do all these things.
And he names everything that he does. And then this man who
was in the back, Jesus said, this man in the back who was
guilty of these things, he also prayed. And he said, God, be
merciful to me, the sinner. Now, the first man, Jesus said,
was not justified because he tried to come and appear before
God and give a justification to defend himself by what he
did. But the other man, he knew he
was guilty. He knew he had done everything
his parents had told him not to do. He was wrong, and he'd
been spanked for it as a child, but it didn't affect him. He
didn't go to church. He didn't pay his tithes. He
stole from people. He lied. He did those things.
And so he beat upon his breast and he said, Oh God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. And Jesus said, that man, that
man who was the ungodly sinner, he actually went to his house
justified. God himself said he was right
and had done no wrong. How? How could that have been?
He was a sinner and God doesn't stretch the truth. He doesn't
cover things up. He always uncovers them. How
could God look at this man who was a sinner and say, He's righteous. Never done anything wrong. That's
what we want to understand. God gives illustrations of this
in scripture. So this first man, he trusted
in what he had done. He trusted that he had kept God's
law and that he was a good man. He prayed to God. He prayed publicly.
He was able to pray without embarrassment. And he boasted in all that he
did, and he was not justified. If we're not justified before
God, you know what we are? The Bible uses a word called
condemned. That means sentenced to suffer
punishment for our sins. Condemned by God. If we're not
justified, we're condemned. So this man, this first man,
who was actually, to all appearances, was the best man. He was not
justified. He was guilty. And God condemned
him. And he went to hell. Because
that's what God does when he condemns men. And so we have
to give an answer. And none of us can answer. We're
all guilty. God teaches us this. And that's
the first illustration I want to give. And then there was another
illustration in Matthew chapter 7. And this illustration is actually
going to happen. It's real history. It just hasn't
happened yet. These men came before the Lord
Jesus, and He is sitting on the throne of judgment at the end
of the world. And these men come to Him, but
in life they were false prophets. But people thought they were
good. And they came to the Lord Jesus Christ, and they claimed
that they had done everything that they did in His name. They
said, Lord, Lord. Haven't we prophesied, that means
to preach and teach in His name? And haven't we cast out devils?
And haven't we done many wonderful works in Your name? What were
they doing when they said that? They were like the little boy
that I was, trying to defend myself to my parents. Only now they are men, looking
back over their lives, trying to defend themselves to the Lord
Jesus Christ, the judge, for all their life. And they say,
we prophesied, we preached, we were teachers in church. We were
preachers. And we did these wonderful works.
We cast out devils. And we did many wonderful works
in your name. All that we did, we did it as
if it was for you, Lord. They trusted that Jesus would
justify them. That he would look at what they
had done and consider them to have done right and no wrong
because of what he thought of them. They trusted in themselves
that they were righteous. But they were not righteous.
They were guilty. All of us are. All have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. So in these two cases, these
two men, the first man, the Pharisee, went down to his house condemned.
But these other people that stood before the Lord Jesus, Jesus
told them, depart from me. I never knew you. You workers
of iniquity. Iniquity means sin. They were
sinners. They did what was wrong. They
didn't do what was right. In their heart, they had motives
of trying to present themselves before God, expecting God to
accept them for what they had done, even though they had done
it as religious people, good people. They looked good, but
they were really bad because they trusted in themselves that
they were righteous. So those are two examples Scripture
gives of people who tried to be just by what they said and
what they did before God. And no one could be that way.
But then scripture also gives other examples of other men who
are actually justified. And I want to tell you about
them. You would think that God would justify the good people,
wouldn't you? If God is true, you would expect
God to excuse those who were good from judgment. If you've
done everything right, wouldn't that be the reason God would
clear you? That He wouldn't judge you? That
He wouldn't condemn you? If you didn't do what was wrong,
then He has to let you go, doesn't He? But none of us have ever
done the right, have we? Have you ever done right one
time in your heart? Can you think of a time, maybe
just one minute, a slice of your life, when you never thought
an evil thought? When you actually did what you
were told to do from your heart? In the eyes of God, ever one
time? God says there is none righteous.
No, not one. In Genesis chapter 6, God says
He looked upon man's hearts and the imaginations of their hearts
and He said that it's only evil continually. So all of us are
guilty and all of us must stand before God and cannot give an
answer for ourselves. And yet God gives an example
of how He justifies. This is impossible. How could
you do it? Imagine that you're God and you're
true. You only say the truth. And here
this guilty, slimy, vile sinner comes before you. How are you
going to judge him? Are you going to clear him? Are you going to say he's not
guilty? He's all righteous? Of course not. You can't do wrong. You're God. And see, God cannot
do wrong. He cannot clear the guilty. He
will not clear the guilty. He will judge. His justice requires
a payment for every sin. And so this question comes to
us, how then can God be true and just, and yet justify a guilty
sinner? How can He do that? How can God
justify a sinner? Well, that's what this verse
in Acts 13.38 says, Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren,
that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. And by him all that believe are
justified from all things from which you could not be justified
by the law of Moses." The law of Moses, that's what God has
said for us to do. We didn't do it. And how are
we going to be justified by that law? The law won't justify us,
the law will condemn us. How then can we be justified,
God says, by this man. Now here's the next example we
want to look at. How does God in Scripture then
justify the guilty? Because He does. Look at Romans
chapter 4. The book of Romans is all about
justification. This is what the Bible is about.
The Bible is about how God justifies sinners. How He justifies sinners. Not the righteous, but sinners. If you were sick with cancer,
you would need a cure for cancer. But which of you children need
a cure for cancer? Have you ever thought, man, I
need to go rush down to the doctor now and get a pill for this cancer? You don't have cancer. You don't
think about that, do you? Or maybe you think, well, I need
to go get my eyes fixed because I can't see anything. But you
don't think that way because you can see just fine, can't
you? Or your hearing, if your hearing is fine. You don't think
about going to the ear doctor to get your hearing fixed, do
you? You see, only a sinner, someone who's guilty before God,
needs to be justified by God. Because the righteous man, he's
already righteous in his own eyes. And he doesn't need it.
But here, listen to what God says. Does God really, truly,
does He really, truly justify people who are sinners? Does
He? Does the Bible even say that?
Maybe it doesn't say that. Maybe this is all made up. Look
at Romans chapter 4, verse 4. God says, Now to him that worketh,
who tries to do what's right, is the reward not reckoned of
grace, but of debt. In other words, God's going to
pay you back, not with grace, but a debt. When you try to make
yourself good before God so that He will be pleased with you and
accept you because of what you do, when you do that, you know
what you're doing? You're actually making yourself
worse in God's sight. It's a debt you have to pay.
Because in your heart you think, I'm doing this in order to be
right before God. But we're guilty and we can't
please God that way. But he says here, but to him
that worketh not, someone who doesn't try to be right before
God by what he says or does or thinks, but one who believes
on him, God, that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted
for righteousness. Here's a man who is a sinner.
And he knows he's such a sinner that no matter what he does,
he cannot please God because God is holy. God is holy? He can't please God? What will
he do? He hears the gospel. He hears that God justifies the
ungodly by the Lord Jesus Christ, by this man. By this man to us
is preached forgiveness of sins. And that man believes God that
he, in his own justice, will look upon the Lord Jesus and
look upon Him and think about me as he thinks about his son,
and justify me for what he thinks of his son. This man believes
on Him who justifies the ungodly. That's an example. Here's a man
that does it. Can you think of any man in Scripture, in all
of Scripture, who did that? Well, actually, this is about
what Abraham did. Abraham, the one the Jews thought
was their father. They were all born from Abraham.
They thought about Abraham. He's the greatest Jew that ever
lived. He's the one who was the ungodly man that believed on
God, who justifies the ungodly. And God looked at the one he
believed, Jesus Christ, and he justified Abraham for Christ's
sake. Abraham's the example. And then
David. Remember David? Remember how good David was?
Did you think about David as a good man? God says, he's a
man after my own heart. And he did a lot of good things.
Remember Goliath? Remember how he killed Goliath?
He threw that stone with his sling and killed Goliath when
all the strong men of Saul's army were scared to death. Hiding. They wouldn't go out and fight
him. David steps up. A young lad. And he goes out,
one stone, kills Goliath, chops off his head, saves the whole
nation from dying. David seemed like a good man,
wasn't he? But do you know what? David was a really bad man. How do you know? Because he committed
murder. He murdered a man to have that
man's wife. And then he didn't only kill
the man, but he hid what he did. He covered it up. He was the
king, God had blessed him, and he used his place as a king in
order to get what he wanted that was evil and wrong, and murdered
a man in order to hide it. That's a big sin, isn't it? But
God says here that David said, he describes the man who was
blessed by God, to whom God imputes righteousness without the man's
works. He said, blessed are they whose
iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is
the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. That's from Romans
4, verses 6-8. David himself, who committed
murder, that he might commit adultery with his man's wife,
and then he lied about it, and covered it up, and took advantage
of his place as king, and he didn't do anything until God
himself convicted him, sent a prophet to him, and told him, what you
did was wrong, right to his face. Then David said, I've sinned.
And then God said, and I've put away your sin. David said, blessed
is that man to whom the Lord will not charge or impute iniquity. He wouldn't look at the man's
sin and say, you're a sinner. But he would look to the Lord
Jesus Christ and see his sin atoning blood and his obedience
and say, he's righteous for Christ's sake. That's what it means to
be justified. You appear before God, you're
guilty, you have nothing to say, and God answers for you with
His Son. And so we see this in Romans
chapter 5, he explains it. Now, I want you to see how God
justifies us. How does God do this? How does
He justify a sinner? How can God be true, and just,
and holy, and yet say that a sinner is righteous before Him? How
can God do that? Could you do that? Is there any
way that you can think of that would happen? No, of course not. It's impossible for men. We could
never imagine how this would happen. But before God created
the world, He knew how He was going to justify His people.
And so He created Adam in order to represent what He would later
do. He made Adam a lesson. He created Adam in order to teach
us what He would do to save His people from their sins. Do you
know that God created a lot of spirits called angels? And some
of those angels disobeyed God? And when they did, God said that
they are going to be judged forever and eternity in hell. And God
judged those angels and they were cast out of heaven for what
they did. And there was never any hope
that any of those angels, who are now called demons, would
ever be saved by God. Do you know that a large part
of the angels of heaven actually fell in sin and God condemned
them to hell? with no possibility of them ever,
ever being saved. What if God would have created
mankind that way? He created them after He created
the angels, and He set it up so that before He created man,
He would make one man stand in the place of all of His people.
And this is why in Acts 13.38 it says, "...by this man is preached
to you the forgiveness of sins." You see, the way God justifies
us is He has determined that one should stand for the many. We don't do that, do we? Now,
when I told my mom I had gotten the sheets dirty and she spanked
me instead of my brothers so that I could get back to playing,
I was lying. But in a sense, my brothers got to go free because
I took their punishment. Whoever it was that got the sheets
dirty. So in a sense, I stood for those brothers of mine. But it was for a bad reason.
It was a lie to my mom, wasn't it? But God arranged it so that
one man could act for the many. And whatever this man did, it
would be considered what they did. Whatever they did would
be considered what He did. And so when God created Adam,
He gave him one commandment. Don't eat of that tree. But He
ate of it. And that one sin of Adam, at
that one time in history, became the sin of every one of us. So
that we're all sinners because of that one sin. That we committed
when He sinned. Do you know when God created
Adam? He didn't create, He didn't make all the people on the world
at the same time so that we were all there at the same time. Like
the angels when He created them all at once. But with us, He
created us all in one man, in Adam. He created Adam, and from
Adam, all of us were born. So, God teaches that in Scripture,
He created the entire human race, every man, woman, boy, and girl,
at that one time when He created Adam. And He did it that way,
so that whatever Adam did in that one command, would be what
we did. Well, Adam sinned. And because
Adam sinned, God said, you're going to die. You're condemned
to death. And because we were in Adam then, all of us sinned
then, and we were all condemned to death. And every one born
always dies. Have you ever seen anybody who
has never died in the world? Someone born to Adam, never died?
Do you know that children, even children, die even before they
have a chance to do what's wrong? They die, don't they? Some children
are born. Before they're born, from their
mother, they die. They're conceived and they die
before they're born. Could that child sin against God? Not in
their own selves, but they did sin in their father, Adam, and
that's why they died. Now, God did it that way in order
to teach us, if God would condemn us for the sin of this one man,
Adam, our father, If He would consider what He did as what
we did and condemn us for that in the same way, He could also
justify us for the obedience of another man. And this is why
Paul says, "...by this man is preached to you the forgiveness
of sins." The justification. God justifies His people for
what the Lord Jesus Christ did. The one man who stood for the
many. And when he stood for us, when God gave Adam that command,
Adam didn't have any sins to carry, did he? We hadn't been
born yet. Adam didn't carry our sins. He
was born without sin. All he had to do was keep one
commandment. But when Jesus Christ came into the world, God took
all the wrong of all of his people and laid it on him. So not only
did he have to obey God, but he had to fulfill, he had to
make a satisfaction to God for our sins. He had to carry our
sins. In fact, that was his obedience.
He bore our sins in his own body up to the tree. And he made a
satisfaction to God for them. And that obedience of the Lord
Jesus Christ is considered by God the obedience of all of his
people in Christ. And the death that he died, the
suffering that he suffered for our sins, is our suffering and
our death. And this is how God justifies
his people. He has to do two things. He has
to answer God. The Lord Jesus had to answer
God for all of our sins. And he had to do all that God
required for our obedience. And that's what he did. And that's
the way God justifies. Is there any other example besides
Adam? Then the Lord Jesus Christ in
Scripture that illustrates this. Well, there actually are several,
but I want to read to you about one. This man had a slave. You know what a slave is? A slave
is someone who isn't free. They have to do whatever they're
told to do. And they don't get paid for it either. The slave
has to do whatever his master says. Go get me my breakfast,
slave. Go get me my clothes. Oh, wash
my clothes first and iron them and then bring them to me. And
lay them here on the bed. Actually, why don't you put them
on? Here, put them on. Put them on. Tie my tie. Comb my hair. You do everything. Oh, take out the garbage. Mow the lawn. And when I'm done
eating, then you go ahead and eat. But don't eat in my presence.
I don't want to see you eat or hear you eat. You go out there
and eat in the yard. That's what a slave does. Whatever his master
says. Well, this man His name was Onesimus
and he was a slave. And he had to do what his master
Philemon, his master's name was Philemon, told him to do. And
one day Onesimus ran away from his master Philemon. And it was
a disobedience. He wasn't supposed to do that.
God says, if you're a slave, you're supposed to obey your
master. But Onesimus sinfully ran away from his master. He
was a sinner. But when he ran away from his
master, he came and was put into prison. And do you know who was
there in prison when he got there? the Apostle Paul. He met the
Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul told him about
how through one man we could be justified, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And Onesimus heard what God would do for sinners in Christ,
and he believed what he heard. And God justified him. He was
a saved man. And so Onesimus now, he wanted
to go back to his master, but But, and Paul encouraged him
to do that, but he knew that if he went back to his master,
his master would punish him for the wrong that he did. Because
he probably didn't finish the work he had been given to do.
And so his master wasn't able to fulfill his contracts and
he lost money. Whatever it was, Onesimus was
guilty and Philemon had hurt from it. So now, Paul wants to
send the slave Onesimus back to his master Philemon. And what
does Paul do? Who is Paul? Well, he's an apostle. And what does an apostle do?
Well, he preaches the gospel. And he has the Spirit of God
in order to say whatever Christ told him to say. Whatever the
apostle Paul wrote in scripture, that's what God wrote in scripture
through him. And so whatever Paul wrote, to
the people from scripture, it was God writing through him.
And so when Paul was going to write a letter to Philemon, For
Onesimus, he wrote this little book called Philemon. And he
took out his pen and he wrote in that book, he wrote in the
book of Philemon, to Philemon about Onesimus the slave. And
when he wrote to Philemon about Onesimus, you know what Paul
did? He wrote to Philemon in order to justify Onesimus to
Philemon. And how did he do that? Well,
he didn't claim that Onesimus had done what was right, because
he obviously was a sinner. He had run away from his master.
But what Paul did is he wrote to Philemon and he asked Philemon,
he said, now when Onesimus comes to you, And he carries this letter to
you, because he gave the letter to Onesimus. Take this to Philemon,
your master. And in that letter, when Philemon
would read it, Paul said, I want you to receive Onesimus, the
slave, as you would receive me. This is what he says. I'm going
to read it to you. In Philemon 1.12, he says, I have sent him again. Thou therefore
receive him, Onesimus, as mine own bowels." In other words,
as my own heart, as what I love the most. Philemon, I want you
to receive Onesimus as if you were receiving my very treasured,
most loved person in all the world. My own bowels. In fact,
he says it this way in verse 17. He says to Philemon in his
letter, Paul is writing by the Spirit of God. He says, if you
count me a partner, receive him as myself. This is Paul. He's justifying Onesimus to Philemon. He's saying, Philemon, I want
you to receive Onesimus as me. Just as you would receive me.
Now, Onesimus was guilty. He obviously had done wrong.
His master had suffered loss because of what he did. But Paul
said, don't consider what he's done. Don't consider what he's
done right or wrong. I want you to look past that.
I want you to look at what I have done for you, Philemon. I want
you to consider me. And when you think of him, think
of me. And when you receive him, receive
him as me. That's what Paul is telling Philemon.
And this letter Paul put it in Onesimus' hand and he said, now
take this to Philemon, your master. And so Onesimus goes to his master
and he gives him the letter. Onesimus believed that what Paul
had written in the letter is how Philemon would receive him
for Paul's sake. And this is what God says in
Acts chapter 13, 38. He says, Be it known to you therefore,
men and brethren, that through this man, this one man for the
many, is preached to you the forgiveness of sins. And by him,
all that believe, we take the letter of God's word. written
about the Lord Jesus Christ, and we hold it in our hand, and
we take it to God, and we remind Him of what He said in Scripture,
we say, Lord, do as You have said. Receive me, the sinner,
for Christ's sake. By Him all that believe are justified
from all things from which you could not be justified by the
law of Moses. And you know what happened when
Paul preached that sermon there in the book of Acts, in Acts
13? There were a lot of people around who were ungodly, sinful
people, called Gentiles. And they heard it, and they couldn't
believe their eyes. This is too good to be true.
And so they asked Paul, could you preach this again next week?
And he did. And almost the whole city came
out to hear him. And Paul and Barnabas encouraged
those who believed. He said, I want you to continue.
Keep continuing believing this in the grace of God. That's what
he says here. It says in verse 43, He persuaded
them to continue in the grace of God. There was nothing else
for them to do. They had to continue believing what God said in His
word about how He justifies ungodly sinners worthy of death. And
then in verse 48 of the same chapter, it says, "...when the
Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and they glorified the
word of the Lord." They said, this is the best thing we could
ever imagine! God is so good! How could someone,
how could he make it so that one person, one, his own son
could take all the wrong I had done and answer for it in justice
and then do all the right God demanded me to do and that be
my obedience before God. And so it says, and as many as
were ordained to eternal life believed. They held like Onesimus
that letter in their hand, this is all my salvation. What God
has said about his son. what he's done for sinners, how
he justifies us for what he thinks of his son. Let's pray. Dear
Lord, we pray that you would give us this grace to hear your
word as sinners and not trust anything that we could think
or do or say to defend ourselves when we appear before God. But
we would learn from what you've said that even though we are
guilty, even though we deserve punishment, that you would teach
us, Lord, to look to the Lord Jesus Christ, whom you appointed
before the world began to stand for your people, to bear their
sins, and to fulfill all of their obedience in righteousness so
perfectly that it would be an everlasting righteousness in
which you would justify your people, you would say, no wrong,
all right, for Christ's sake. And Lord, when you preach this
from your word, we pray that we would cling to you and continue
in the grace of God, and we would believe this with all of our
heart, and we would live in this life thankful, with such gratitude,
that we would walk depending on the Lord Jesus to give us
everything, because we're sinners, that we need to live. And so
we pray, Lord, take glory to yourself and save us for Christ's
sake. In his name we pray. Amen.