In Matthew 15, I've entitled
this message, Come to Christ. In Matthew 15, we have a section
of scripture that's almost a repeat of what happened a couple of
chapters earlier. The Lord Jesus feeds 5,000 in
the earlier event, and here He feeds 4,000. And we're going
to pick it up in verse 29. And Jesus departed from fence
and came nigh unto the Sea of Galilee and went up into a mountain
and sat down there. And great multitudes came to
him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed,
and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet. And he healed
them. What a sight that was. insomuch
that the multitude wondered when they saw the dumb to speak, the
maimed to behold, the lame to walk, and the blind to see. And
they glorified the God of Israel. Then Jesus called his disciples
to him and said, I have compassion on the multitude because they
continue with me now three days and have nothing to eat. I will
not send them away fasting lest they faint in the way. And his
disciples said to him, When should we have so much bread in the
wilderness as to fill so great a multitude? And Jesus said to
them, how many loaves have ye? And they said, seven, and a few
little fishes. And he commanded the multitude
to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves
and the fishes and gave thanks and break them and gave to his
disciples and the disciples to the multitude and they did all
eat and were filled. And they took up the broken meat
that was left, seven baskets full, and they that did eat were
four thousand men beside women and children. And he sent them
away, he sent away the multitude and took ship and came into the
coast of Magdala." Now the Gospels give the account of all that
Jesus said and did. Not everything Jesus said and
did is recorded. But what God inspired Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John to write was for a specific purpose. That
purpose is stated in John 20, verse 31. It says, these things
were written that you might believe. Believe what? That Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you might have life
through his name. God's purpose in this chapter,
in Matthew 15, verses 29 through 39, therefore, is that we might
believe the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to believe Him. I want
you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That is my prayer. That
is what I want you and I to do today. That is what I would ask
the Lord would give us that we would hear and believe the Lord
Jesus Christ today. Now the scripture for today's
sermon that we just read begins with these first three verses
which speaks about how the Lord Jesus departed. It says, he departed
from fence and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee. And he went
up into a mountain and sat down there, and great multitudes came
to him, and having with them those that were lame, blind,
dumb, that means they were mute, they couldn't speak, maimed,
and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet, and he healed
them, insomuch that the multitude wondered when they saw the dumb
to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind
to see, and they glorified the God of Israel. Jesus left one
place to come to another. A great number came to him there. Many suffered serious limitations. They were blind, lame, deaf,
mute, even mutilated. And so as not to leave any out,
in verse 30 it says, and many others. That little phrase, and
many others, means no needy sinner is excluded. I love that. Whatever your condition, come
to Christ. Jesus healed them all. He did
the same throughout the New Testament. This multitude then stayed with
Jesus three days to hear him. And three days after, he looked
upon them with compassion. He would not send them away hungry,
and so he made food for them to eat. He came here and he did
again what he had already done before. Now, this was a wilderness
place. It was not comfortable. There
were no provisions here that were found in the city. These
people were weak and poor, unlearned and outcast. But that's exactly
the kind of people the Lord saves, isn't it? He passes by the strong
and he saves the weak. He passes by the wise and he
teaches the ignorant. He leaves pretenders in their
unbelief and he saves great sinners from theirs. The healthy do not
need a physician, but the sick know that they do. The whole
do not need a miracle, but the maimed and dismembered need new
eyes. new ears and new limbs. Jesus
came into the world to save sinners. Verse Timothy 115, never lose
sight of that all important and ever comforting truth. There's
never a time when we do not need the comfort of this truth. We
never grow beyond it. Physical sickness makes us acutely
feel our need. But physical sickness is but
a reflection of our true need, the healing of our souls. Isaiah
38 verse 17, Hezekiah was sick and the Lord healed him and he
says, for peace I had great bitterness, but thou hast in love to my soul
delivered it from the pit of corruption because thou hast
cast all my sins. behind thy back." His sickness
was what brought him to his knees, but he realized the Lord healed
him because he cast his sins behind his back. The Lord tells
us, remember the pit from whence thou was digged. It was a deep
and foul pit. In Titus chapter 3, the Lord
sets our deplorable condition side by side in contrast with
Christ's glory. He says this in Titus chapter
three, in verse three. We were sometimes foolish. It
seems like I am all the time foolish. We were sometimes foolish,
disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living
in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another, but after
that, The kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared,
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration and
renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly through
Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace
we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Jesus died for sinners. God justifies the ungodly. What point would there be for
Christ to die to save righteous folks? What glory would there
be to God if He declared the righteous to be just? God is
infinitely good. is therefore infinitely bad. God is so holy and wise and gracious
that he found a way to justify, who? The ungodly. Therefore, nothing less than
the death of the Son of God can save sinners from their sin.
The sinless Son of God was punished and the guilty rebel was set
free. Christ came for a specific purpose. To save a specific people. It
says in Matthew 18 verse 11, the Son of Man has come to save. That's the purpose. The purpose
is He came to save. The people are that which was
lost. A specific purpose for a specific
people. The slave has sinned, so writes
the hymn writer, but the son has suffered. The shepherd for
the sheep is offered. The Lord of the world became
the servant in the world. The lawgiver was made under the
law. He alone whose right it is to
rule made obedience his rule of life. The judge took the place
of the condemned. The prince of life gave his life
for those whose sins crucified him. Jesus came to save sinners. I think in this modern time,
that's one of the things that I see more than anything is no
one wants to be a sinner. You can be the most perverse
and you will repel any anyone to say that you are a
sinner. No, it's right because I want
it to be right. And what is that more than just
self-righteous perversity? But Jesus Christ came to save
sinners. In our text, He came to this
place at this time, to these people, to heal sin-sick sinners. And this was God's purpose for
Christ's coming, to save His people from their sins. This
was God's covenant He says in Romans chapter 11, this is my
covenant unto them when I shall take away their sins. Sinners
couldn't be happier about it. There's no better news in all
the world to one who is ungodly than this. To one who is a sinner
in the core of his being, unable to recover himself, unable to
perform any function of spiritual life, there is no better news. than that Jesus Christ came to
save sinners. It's only when you're helpless,
only when you have nothing and can do nothing that Christ coming
for sinners is good news to you. To the one who has no obedience
that God can accept, there's no better news than that God
accepts the obedience of Christ in my place as my all-sufficient
righteousness." I never get over that. I never get over that,
that the Lord would appoint and accept what Christ has done for
me. Christ healed all these sick
folk. He healed every kind of deformity and disease and illness
and this is because He saves every kind of sinner, even the
worst. The worst of sinners who comes
to Him as a sinner with nothing but His Word and tells us in
His Word that He's willing and able to save the sinfulest. Now,
in verse 30 of our text, it says, in so much that the multitude
wondered when they saw the dumb to speak and the maim to behold,
the lame to walk and the blind to see, and they glorified the
God of Israel. God brings affliction in our
body to heighten the disease of our soul. Doesn't he? There's nothing that makes you
run to the Lord more quickly than when you start to feel weak
and feeble, is there? But there's nothing more acutely
that causes you to seek the Lord than to feel that in your conscience.
Physical sickness humbles us and we need to be humbled. Remember
Joseph and his brothers, how he humbled his brothers? They
had sold him to slavery. First they thought to kill him,
then they sold him to slavery. He suffered for that. They had
no pity on him when he cried. And then when he's a ruler of
Egypt, they stand before him, he humbles them. He brings them
before his throne of justice, and he accuses them. And they
were guilty. By their own admission, they
had killed their brother. They thought they had. Judah
said, our brother's dead, right in front of Joseph while he was
standing there alive. He humbled them, didn't he? And
they couldn't even believe it, that it was him. And when they
learned it was Joseph, immediately they knew they were in deep trouble.
But it was when they were humbled and they had nothing to expect
except justice, that Joseph said, it is Joseph, your brother. God
sent me here to save you alive. Before I was afflicted, the psalmist
says, I went astray, but now have I kept thy word. There's
no greater area in which we need to be brought low than in our
own opinion of ourselves before God. We have high thoughts of ourselves
because we have low thoughts of God. When Denise and I were
married, I think we had a song sung at our wedding. And in the
song it says this, I had some thoughts of God before I met
him. He even seemed to look a lot like me. But when I saw the cross
of my savior, I knew I was blind as I could be. When Isaiah saw
the Lord Jesus Christ sitting on his throne as Jehovah God,
you know what he said? Woe is me, I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips. You
see, when he saw God, on his throne, the Lord Jesus, then
he was brought low. And when by faith we see Christ
as God and man, our only Redeemer, our thoughts of God will be made
high and our thoughts of ourselves will be brought to nothing. God's
word applied to our conscience must bring us down. Only then
will we come to Christ. Thank God for soul trouble. Thank
God for the stress that my sin causes and that God uses to drive
me to Christ. Anything, as I said last night,
anything that makes God's grace and Christ and salvation by His
grace alone necessary to me is a mercy. Anything, whether it
be loss of, like these people had, loss of limbs or loss of
health, When we see our condition and when we understand that Christ
is the only Savior of such as we are, then we will borrow words. We'll borrow words. We'll borrow
words from those in God's Word who prayed in their trouble and
were delivered. You see, the shortest prayers
of sinners are the best prayers for sinners to pray. Lord, help
me. Lord, save me. Lord, remember
me when you come into your kingdom. God, have mercy on me, the sinner. For thy namesake, O Lord, pardon
mine iniquity, for it is great. That's the heart of a humble
sinner, isn't it? Because my iniquity is great. If it were
small, I wouldn't be here. But because it's great, and I
have no other hope, and because your glory is great in healing,
in pardoning great iniquity, Lord, for your name's sake, pardon
my iniquity. It's great. And say unto my soul,
like Pastor Harmon was saying earlier, the Lord has to speak
to us. Say it therefore, Lord, unto
my soul, I am thy salvation. Take away all iniquities and
receive us graciously. Those are God's word given to
sinners to pray. Take with you words and say this. Take away all iniquity and receive
us graciously. Let thy mercies come also unto
me, O Lord, even thy salvation according to thy word. And here's
one I really love, Psalm 65, three. Iniquities prevail against
me. Don't you feel that? Iniquities
prevail against me. They seem to overcome and overthrow
me. As for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away. Atonement
is the answer. Order my steps in thy word and
let not any iniquity have dominion over me. These are the prayers. These prayers by the Spirit of
God are my warrant that Christ can save me, this sinner. Now
the call of the gospel is come to Christ. In Revelation 22,
verse 17, it says, the spirit and the bride say, come. The
Holy Spirit of God and the church of Christ have one message to
sinners. Look to Christ. Believe Him. Come to Christ. Remember John
20, 31? These things were written that you might believe. Behold
Him. In this account, in Matthew 15,
multitudes came to Jesus. They brought people with sad
conditions and some couldn't see, some couldn't hear, some
could not walk, some couldn't talk, some were mutilated. All
were burdened by their condition. They were unable to do what other
people could do. Spiritually, don't you find that
to be the case with you? I can't do what spiritual people
do. Whatever that is. Sinners cannot
do one thing of all that God requires. That's a sinner. All
of this is therefore a call for sinners to come to Christ. What
does it mean to come to Christ? It seems mysterious, doesn't
it? How can I get to him? He is in heaven, I'm on earth.
He's holy, I'm sinful. He's the light of the world,
I'm darkness. I'm blind and ignorant. Thomas asked Jesus this question,
Lord, how can we know the way? Jesus, of course, said, I am
the way. And he said this, I'm the bread
of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that
believeth on me shall never thirst, John 6, 35. Did you catch that? He that cometh to me, he that
believeth. The two are equivalent, the exact
same things. When you believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, you come to him. And if you believe Him, you have
come. And if you've come to Him, you keep coming. You don't just
believe once, you keep believing. In 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 4
it says, To whom? Coming. Coming. Coming. Psalm 116 verse 2 says, Therefore
will I call upon Him as long as I live. We come to a person
who is God and man, and our coming is not a one-time act, but a
continual looking to Christ and calling on him for everything
in our salvation. Jesus said, come unto me, all
you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Are
you burdened by your sin? Do you want nothing more than
to know that all your sins have been forgiven you by God? come
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Is your sin great? Do you fear
that your sin is so great that God will not forgive you? David
said, If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who
could stand? But there is forgiveness with
thee, that thou mayest be feared. Do you wonder if you've ever,
if you've sinned so greatly and so repeatedly that you have sinned
away grace? Jesus said, come unto me, all
you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Do
you find no strength against sin? Come to Christ. Isn't that what the psalmist
said? Iniquities prevail against me, as for our transgressions,
thou shalt purge them away. And where? On the atoning work
of Christ. Come to Christ. Do you lack evidence
that you're a Christian? Come to Jesus. If you found in
yourself what you think would give you peace and assurance
and joy before God, what would it be? What would that look like? Let me assure you, if you discover
it in yourself, you have not yet come to Christ. You remain
blinded by your spiritual pride if you expect to find anything
in yourself that will give you confidence. If you find it, you
have found a lie. Christ has obtained eternal redemption. He's worked out everlasting righteousness
outside of our personal experience. Hebrews 1-3 again, when He had
by Himself purged our sins, then He sat down. The fact that Jesus
Christ is seated in glory is proof that by Himself He purged
our sins before He sat down. The only basis for your acceptance
in coming to God is entirely outside of you. We come to Christ
only because of what we find in him from his word. You will
only find peace and joy and comfort and rest when you are fully persuaded
that Christ is your all and there is nothing about yourself for
confidence. Paul the Apostle said in Philippians
3.3, we are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit
and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.
Come to Jesus. Are you unable to perform the
functions of spiritual life? Come to Christ. Do you lack words
to pray? How often do I lack words to
pray? Come to Christ. Are you unable
to repent? Come to Christ. Look to Him. Do you long to know that you're
accepted by God? Come to Christ. Do you need faith
to believe? Lord, help my unbelief. Come to Christ. You will only
find salvation and life in Him. Our problem is not that we do
too little, though that's what we naturally think. It is that
we take something about ourselves as the basis of our confidence
and peace and joy and assurance. It is that we think being a good
Christian is doing great things for God. It's not. Being a good
Christian is being the object of His saving grace. It is knowing
Christ as all of my salvation. It is calling on Him to save
me. It is worshiping Him for His
salvation. And you've heard it several times
before, I'm sure, in this place. It's not your sin that keeps
you from Christ. It's your righteousness. Isn't
that true? It's our righteousness. That's
why these people were missing parts. They didn't have what
most people had. They couldn't do what people
normally did. In Numbers 21, the children of Israel murmured
and complained against God and Moses. And you know the story,
God sent fiery serpents among them to bite them. There was
no cure. Many died. The rest were dying
and they cried to Moses. God told Moses to make a serpent
of brass and put it on a pole. He told the people to look at
that serpent on the pole and all who looked lived. The serpent
on the pole is Christ crucified under the curse of God. God tells
all under the curse of His law to look to Christ. And who isn't
under the curse of God's law? God tells all of us to look to
Him. Don't try to cover the bite of
your spiritual death, which came by your own sin. Don't put a
tourniquet on it to stop the spread of poison and sin. Don't
seek and experience to do good deeds as a pill to relieve your
pain. Don't try to get up. Don't try
to walk. Don't raise your hand. Your tears
and sorrows will not move God to help you. The deadly poison
courses through your veins toward your heart and your brain. As
one paralyzed by sin, look to Christ. See what he has done,
believe his word. Isn't that what Moses kept telling
the children of Israel? Stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. Believe him only. That's what
Jesus told Jairus when his daughter was dying and actually dead.
Believe only, only believe. The only obedience God accepts
is Christ's. The only repayment to God's justice
is His blood. The only freedom from sin and
death is the eternal redemption He obtained. Don't try to clean
up. His blood alone cleanses from
all sin. There's no difference between
the best and the worst of men when they're serpent bitten,
is there? All are bitten. All must look only to Christ
crucified. Only those who look are healed.
We only live in believing Christ come to Christ. Don't resolve
you'll never do it again. Don't minimize your sin. We do
that. That's our knee-jerk reaction,
isn't it? Don't minimize the spiritual
death bite in your soul that your sin has brought. Recognize
that your case is fatal. Recognize that God has but one
remedy for sin-sick souls. It's Christ and Him crucified,
risen, exalted, reigning, and interceding for sinners. That's
our remedy. It's not about you. It's about
Him. Look upon Him who is the remedy. Remember Isaiah 53, verse 4 and
5? It's summarized in 1 Peter 2.24,
who his own self, bear our sins in his own body on the tree,
that we being dead to sins should live to righteousness. It's all
about him. He that cometh to me, the Lord Jesus said, I will
in no wise cast out. Maybe you wonder if God has elected
you. Maybe you wonder if Christ died
for you. Maybe you wonder if God will
grant you repentance and faith and give you life, like the woman
before this section of scripture in Matthew 15. You might wonder
those things. Take your concern to Christ. The spirit and the bride say,
come. You, you, Lord, save me. Don't think about what others
are doing. You, yourself, go to him. Christ himself says,
come unto me. By nature we will not come, but
if you come to Christ believing he is your only answer to God
for your sins in judgment, not a defense that you can make,
but the defense he made, the answer he gave, the satisfaction
he made, the intercession he, his advocacy, his pleading, When you believe Him, if you
come to Christ believing that the only obedience God can accept
from you is what He accepted from Him, then you will not be
cast out. That's what it means to come.
God has made Him sin for us. He who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. He died the just
for the unjust to bring us to God. When He comes calling in
our name for us, we come to the Lord. He brings us. God only justifies us for what
He finds in His Son. How hard a lesson that is to
learn. Therefore, believe Christ only. Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Do not put any
conditions on His salvation. Christ has met all conditions.
You must look away from yourself to Christ. But you say, I fear
I cannot believe. I cannot come and I cannot look. Remember, Jesus commanded the
man with a withered hand to stretch out his hand? But it was withered. He couldn't stretch it out. Yet
with the command came the grace from Christ to obey that command.
When Lazarus was dead, Jesus cried, Lazarus, come forth. He who was dead was raised to
life and obeyed the command of Christ. How did that happen? God told Ezekiel, speak to these
dry bones. And he said, and command the
wind. And the breath entered into the
bones. When you hear, when you hear with your spiritual ears,
That your only standing before God is what God has done in Christ. And that you are to believe Him
for everything in your salvation. If you believe, it's because
God has given you faith. And that is by His grace. It
is not of you. It's not of yourselves. That's
why we look to Christ for everything, isn't it? Don't bring your faith. Come to the Lord Jesus for your
faith. Don't bring your sorrow. Look
to Christ who took your sorrows. Faith is not me doing my part
so that God will do his part. Faith is seeing that Christ did
my part. Come to Christ for everything.
Come to him for salvation from your sins. Come to him for justifying
righteousness. Come to him for repentance and
for faith, for a new heart. These people didn't have certain
parts, for eyes to see, for ears to hear the gospel, for a mouth
to speak the truth of his salvation, for feet to walk in faith and
hands to handle him by faith. God raises and answers the question
in his word, what must I do to be saved? He raised that question
so that we would know the answer. And what did he say? Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Come to him and thou shalt be
saved. How can I live? The question
comes to our mind. How can I live? Thou just shalt
live by faith. How should I walk? We walk by
faith, not by sight. How shall I live? I live by the
faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians
2.20. How can I love God? We love him
because he first loved us. If we start thinking about our
love, we suddenly find out we have none. So we look to Christ
and we see that this is the way God's love is made manifest to
us. He sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. before
the world began. The Lord Jesus Christ gave on
his word a pledge to give himself for his people. And that's why
it says in Ephesians 5, 25, he loved the church and gave himself
for it. That's what instills love, doesn't
it? What shall I cry? Lord, save me. Jesus said, you
will not come to me that you might have life. That's what
the Pharisees were guilty of. We come to Christ for life, spiritual
and eternal, and all who come live. If you come to Christ,
you already have eternal life. In John 5, 24 it says, he that
heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting
life already and shall not come into condemnation but is passed
from death to life, that one who believes. That's amazing,
isn't it? Come unto me, all you who labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. If you come to
Christ, you rest. What is rest? It is ceasing from
your own works and resting in Christ's finished work. We don't
come to Christ once only. If you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, you come to him by faith continually, and you keep coming. to whom coming. We never outgrow
our need for Christ. Colossians 2, 6 says, as you
have received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk ye in him. We must
never try to go beyond him. In 2 John 1, verse 9, it says,
whoever transgresses and goes beyond abideth not in the doctrine
of Christ. He doesn't have God. That's what
transgression means. It means to go over, beyond the
boundary. And that boundary is Christ.
Abide in me, he said to his disciples. Christ is our life. He is our
all. The fullness of the Godhead dwells
in him, and you are complete in him. God has made Christ all
things for us. The weakest believer is complete
in Him. He's our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification,
and redemption. That's God's Word. 1 Corinthians
1.30. Oh, soul of mine, look to Christ. May God give us grace even to
do so. And so in verses 32 through 39
of this section of scripture, Jesus performs a miracle. It's
almost a repeat of what he already performed in chapter 14 when
he fed 5,000. Why did the Lord Jesus repeat
this miracle here in Matthew 15? Why did he do it again? Do
you ever wonder about that? I remember when I was looking
at this several months ago, the question came to me, how can
I preach this sermon again? We just preached it last week.
Well, the first thing is, is that we see here that because
He saved multitudes, He can save multitudes more. He saved others,
He can save me. If you were in this crowd, if
you were hungry as these people were, would you have thought
this miracle unnecessary because Jesus had done this sometime
in the past for others? Christ never grows tired. of
sinners crying to Him for all grace out of their helplessness?
You ever think about that? He has compassion. This is a
repeat of His compassion He had before. Compassion. Repeating
compassion over... He never gets tired of hearing
that cry, Lord, have mercy on me. Lord, help me. You know why? Because that's why He came. He
gave Himself, and that fulfills God's will, and that gives Him,
that's His food and drink, to give Himself, to save His people.
And when we draw from Him, it pleases Him. God is well pleased
when sinners have to get to Christ. And the second reason is why
Jesus repeated this miracle here, I think, is that what Jesus did
in one place, He did in many places. Aren't you glad? What if He only healed people
in Galilee? What He did for one, He did for
many. What He does once, He does over
and over again. He often repeats His miracles
and it's a good thing that He does. Aren't you glad that the
Lord Jesus Christ repeats His miracle of salvation? He saved
in Galilee, He can save here. He saved multitudes, He can save
multitudes more. He saved thousands, yet He can
save me. That's what faith says. He made
the gospel real in my heart before, I need Him to make it real to
me again, day by day. And third, because we need to
hear the gospel again. Why did He repeat this miracle?
Because we need to hear the gospel again, and again, and again. Remember the old hymn, tell me
the old, old story, Tell me the story slowly, that I may take
it in, that wonderful redemption, God's remedy for sin. Tell me
the story often, for I forget so soon, the early dew of morning
has passed away at noon. Paul said, to write the same
things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it
is safe. Philippians 3.1. We who believe
will spend endless cycles of eternity worshiping our God and
Savior, the Lord Jesus, for who He is and for what He did in
saving us from our sins. What is that one thing that we'll
see about the Lord Jesus Christ that will draw forth our adoration
and admiration and worship for eternity? Look, the Lamb slain
on the throne Look at Him. And fourth, our Lord repeats
His miracle because we are continuously needy, aren't we? These were
hungry like those who came before. We never outgrow or grow beyond
our need for mercy and grace. We only grow in grace. Be strong,
my son, in the grace that is in our Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what Paul told Timothy. We grow in the faith of that
persuasion that Christ is everything in our salvation, our complete
repayment for our sin, everything in our obedience, everything
in our coming to God. Do you know that heaven will
be a welfare state? We will always, even in eternity,
be utterly dependent on His grace and the Lamb will have all the
glory in heaven. Throughout eternity, we'll be
unable to earn one blessing from God, and we will say, as the
hymn writer says, oh, to grace, how great a debtor, daily, I'm
constrained to be. From our inmost being, we will
forever confess I am what I am by the grace of God. How many
times a day do you need fresh mercy from Christ? When you fall
into familiar sins of imagination, and thought and motive and word
and deed, when you commit the same sin for the hundredth time
and the thousandth time, do you not with each fall find a continuous,
even a growing need for mercy and cleansing from Christ? Remember
what Psalm 80 says, turn us again. Turn us again. The Spirit of
God put those words in that Psalm. Turn us again. O God of hosts,
cause thy face to shine. Turn us again, O God of our salvation. Cause thy face to shine and we
shall be saved. God has to lift up Christ to
us again and turn us again because we're constantly in need. We
walk, as Pastor Gene said, burdened with this old man of sin. We
constantly need God to show us Christ. This is our repeated
cry, and when we're given grace to rely on the Lord Jesus Christ
as our all, we realize afresh that we have nothing but what
we have in Him. No tears can satisfy God or persuade
Him to forgive me. My sorrow itself is a sorrow
that needs to be repented of. Only the blood of Christ cleanses
us from all sin. So we go again and again and
again, and we never stop going. We don't leave because there's
nowhere else for a sinner to go. The psalmist cried this in
Psalm 86, look at this Psalm with me. This is a blessed verse,
very little verse. Psalm 86 and verse three, look
at this. He says in Psalm 86, verse three,
be merciful unto me, oh Lord. And notice those next words,
for I cry unto thee daily. You would think that one who
cries daily would not be so needy, wouldn't you? But it is because
he is so needy that he cries daily. And what is his cry? Mercy, free me from my sin, let
me see your face. And the other reason I think
the Lord repeats this miracle of of giving bread to these 4,000
was that whenever the Lord repeats anything, it's to remind us,
isn't it? Didn't he tell us this? Do this
in remembrance of me. The Holy Spirit of God is our
great remembrancer. The Lord Jesus said, the Comforter,
which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name,
he will teach you all things and bring all things to your
remembrance whatsoever, I've said to you. When we look back
in our lives, don't we see that we've learned the same lessons
over and over again? Don't you find that to be true?
I thought I had this one. I keep learning it. No, I guess
I'm never going to learn it. I guess I could go through this
again and again. This need for Christ never stops. And sixth, and lastly, because
His mercy endures forever. That's what this is teaching.
Why did the Lord Jesus do this? We see here compassionate repetition
of giving his mercy. In Psalm 136, 26 times this phrase
is repeated. His mercy endureth forever. It says in verse 23, who remembered
us in our lowest state, for his mercy endureth forever, and hath
redeemed us from our enemies, for his mercy endureth forever. In verse 25, who giveth food
to all flesh, just like Jesus did here on the mountain, for
his mercy endureth forever. Oh, give thanks unto the God
of heaven, for his mercy endureth forever. Isn't this exactly what
we see in Matthew 15? Just as Jesus looked with compassion
on the sick and hungry, in compassion he redeemed his people from their
sins and the curse of God's law and the power of Satan. And he
gives food to his people. The people glorified God for
his mercy, didn't they? In Matthew 15, in the last verse
it says, and they glorified the God of Israel. O give thanks
unto the God of heaven, for His mercy endureth forever. Christ
gives grace repeatedly and unendingly because He is moved with compassion
towards sinners. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed because His compassions fail not. That's
why we're not lost, that's why we don't fail in faith, because
his compassions fail not. Will the Lord Jesus receive me
if I come? Doesn't that question burn in
your heart? Will he receive me? He says in his word he will.
He that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. The spirit
and the bride say, come. And let him that is a thirst
say, come. And whosoever will, let him take
of the water of life freely. His commandment is your warrant
to come. believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
God commands you to do so. And to do otherwise is the height
of stiff-necked, stubborn pride of self-righteousness. That's
what Romans 10.3 says. May God be pleased to grant us
this grace to believe His Son, and in so believing, rest in
hope by the power of His Holy Spirit to His glory.