It is not that I did choose thee,
Lord, O Lord, that could not be. Yuba-Sutter Grace Church
would like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Rick
Warda. We currently meet at the Yuba
County Library, located at 303 2nd Street in downtown Marysville,
California, on the corner of 2nd and C Street. Weekly services
are held on Sunday at 11 a.m. at the library. For more information,
visit our website at ysgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Rick Warda.
The text for our sermon today is in Matthew chapter 5, verse
27 through 30. You have heard that it was said
by them of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say
unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her
hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And
if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from
thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members
should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into
hell. And if thy right hand offend
thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee, for it is profitable
for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy
whole body should be cast into hell. I have entitled this sermon,
What Must I Do to Be Saved? I would like to give you an overview
of Matthew chapter 5. When I read Matthew chapters
5, 6, and 7, I am convicted by my own sinfulness. The requirements
Jesus gave in these chapters seem so high, and there doesn't
seem to be any wiggle room. I see five lessons in these chapters.
First, what God's law really means. Second, in ourselves we
are all guilty before God. Third, it is impossible for sinful
man to do what God requires. Fourth, salvation is God saving
sinners by grace alone in Christ alone. And fifth, only Christ
fulfilled God's holy law. Finally, God commands sinners
to look to Christ, crucified, as all of their salvation, and
come to God by Him. First, then, what God's law really
means. When we read these verses, or
all of Matthew 5, 6, and 7, the first thing we should see is
that our Lord Jesus explains the true meaning of God's holy
law. In this one sermon, Jesus said
this six times, you have heard, followed by, but I say unto you,
Christ is the authority. He is the word of God. It is his law. He is the law
giver. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus
tells us what God meant when he gave the law. By explaining
what his law means, our Lord Jesus makes known our true condition
before God. His law exposes our sin. The
Apostle Paul said, We know that what thing soever the law saith,
it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may
be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
Jesus said that it is not only our actions that are sin, but
it is our thoughts and motives. We do wrong things, first of
all, because we are sinners. Why do we do evil? Because we
are evil. Who among us can deny that we
are guilty of hate and envy? Jesus says, such things are murder
in the heart. What man can claim he never looked
upon a woman to lust after her in his heart? Jesus says to do
such is to commit adultery in the heart. Who can say they never
used God's name to convince others they are not liars, saying, I
swear to God? Jesus said all such forms of
speaking arise from evil within. Therefore, the first thing we
learn in all of these is the holiness of God's law. God requires
truth in the inward parts. Psalm 51 verse 6. God's law is
holy because God is holy. God's law finds us to be unholy
because we are truly sinful. We are hostile towards God. Romans
8 verse 7. We deny His truth. Romans 1,
18 and 25. We despise His way. We refuse
His rule. Our sin denies God His right
to be God, to rule as God on His throne over all things and
over us. And then Jesus said, God's law
requires truth in our thoughts, not just our actions. Therefore,
all of us break God's law all of the time. Jesus made it clear
that we are guilty before God. Psalm 24 verses 8-9 says, He
that devises to do evil shall be called a mischievous person.
The thought of foolishness is sin, and the scorner is an abomination
to men. To devise evil is to think or
plan evil. A mischievous person is an evil
person. Therefore, by what Jesus said,
we must all take our place among the evil, with the mischievous.
All men must own the fact that they not only do sin, but they
are full of sin. Jesus said we must love God with
our whole heart, soul, mind and strength. Deuteronomy 6, 5 and
Matthew 22, verse 37. But who has ever done that? The
Apostle James said, to break one law is to break them all.
James 2 verse 10. And who has lived one minute
of their life without doing that? Therefore, by what goes on in
our mind alone, we must all admit that we have not kept one of
God's commandments one time. Jesus said, Be ye therefore perfect
as your Father in heaven is perfect. Matthew 5 verse 48. We must not
only do right and avoid wrong, but we must think right and think
no evil. God's law requires that we keep
every commandment all the time, perfectly, out of love, with
our whole heart. Therefore, we have to line up
with the guilty. We have to take our place on
the enemy team against God, the side of thieves and liars, adulterers
and murderers. We are guilty of breaking every
commandment all the time. We have done what we ought not
do, and we have left undone what we ought to do, and there is
no goodness in us at all. Romans 3 verse 12 says there
is none that doeth good, no, not one. To deny this is to deny
the truth of Scripture. It is to deny Christ's own words. This is the second thing we learn
from Matthew chapter 5. We are guilty before God. The
third thing we learn from Jesus' sermon is that it is impossible
for sinful man to do what God requires. We must realize that
what God requires of us is impossible for sinners to do. God tells
us what He requires throughout the Bible. By doing so, He shows
us our guilt. But He also does two other things. He describes Christ, who did
do what God requires. And He shows us the utter impossibility
of becoming right with God by what we do. We have failed in
all that God commands, but Christ fulfilled the very heart of what
God requires. If God gives us grace to be honest,
it will drive us to realize that in ourselves it is impossible
to be right before God. We see this impossibility in
Jesus' words. Jesus said that if your right
eye causes you to sin, if it offends you, pluck it out. He
said if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. Therefore,
if we must have a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness
of the scribes and Pharisees, and if we have to come up with
this righteousness ourselves, then we have to start plucking
out and hacking off whatever causes us to sin. Now, Before
you start mutilating yourself, think about this. Are people
who cannot see without sin? Are people without arms also
without sin? Surely not. If so, then why did
the Apostle Paul say about himself, I know that in me that is in
my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Romans 7 verse 18. If there was
nothing good in the flesh of the Apostle Paul, then to do
what Jesus said here, we would have to kill ourselves to be
saved. And that is impossible, isn't
it? That's what the law requires. The sinner must die. The wages
of sin is death. We cannot keep God's law or pay
for our own sin by killing ourselves. How do we know that? Because
those in hell never pay for their sins. They are there forever.
After an eternity in hell, they have an eternity yet to suffer.
Nor do we actually keep God's law by suffering in hell. We
therefore cannot pay for our own sins. But the key to understanding
this verse in Matthew chapter 5 verse 20 is to hear what Jesus
said, that to enter heaven, our righteousness must be better
than the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Now if
you were a scribe or a Pharisee and heard Jesus say that, you
would know right then and there that you were excluded from heaven
by your works, because Jesus said, a righteousness better
than your own is required to enter heaven. Your very best
is not only not good enough, it is going the wrong way. The
Apostle Paul made it clear that if we attempt to be righteous
before God by our own law-keeping, we are debtors to do the whole
law. Galatians 5 verse 3. You see,
the scribes and Pharisees trusted their own obedience as the way
to find favor with God. Yet the Apostle Paul, who was
once a Pharisee, said that by what the law required outwardly,
he was blameless. Philippians 3 verses 4-7. Yet
when Paul saw Christ, he realized that all he had done before that
time was a pile of dung. Disgusting, revolting, sickening
dung. Therefore, anything you or I
do to make ourselves right with God, not only does not help,
it makes things worse for us before God. because it is all
hypocrisy. It is not true obedience. It
puffs up our mind with conceit by thinking outward obedience
is a basis for acceptance with God. The best efforts of the
best of men are therefore not only not good enough, they are
really bad because they are done with a thought of earning God's
favor and earning life by our own personal obedience. But how
can I earn anything from God? The rich young ruler came to
Jesus and said, Good Master, what must I do to inherit eternal
life? Jesus replied, Why do you call
me good? You know the commandments. Do
not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not kill. Do
not lie. Do not cheat. Honor your father
and mother. The young man said, Master, all
these have I kept from my youth up. Jesus said, Go sell all you
have and give it to the poor. Scripture says that young man
went away sorrowful for that because he was very rich. He
could not do what Jesus said because his heart was covetous. He lived for himself and trusted
his riches. He could not get eternal life
by what he did because he was a sinner who could only think
sin. It was impossible for him to
change his heart. Jeremiah said it this way, Can
the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then
may you also do good that are accustomed to doing evil. Jeremiah
13 verse 23 We might be able to pluck out our right eye, or
maybe even both of our eyes. We may be able to cut off our
hand, maybe even both of our hands, but we cannot change our
hearts. Therefore, Jesus spoke these
words to silence all who trust their own works in some way to
obtain salvation and blessing from God. He spoke these words
to drive us to despair in ourselves, to cause us to see that our heart
is the problem. No amount of self-mortification
will change our heart. Proverbs 23.7 says, As a man
thinks in his heart, so is he. What we think is what we truly
are. And God looks at the heart. 1
Samuel 16 verse 7. We are not only guilty, but because
we are sinful in our heart, it is impossible for us to do what
God demands. Romans 3.20 says, By the deeds
of the law, by our own personal obedience to the law, there shall
no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the
knowledge of sin. If my heart is full of sin and
I must be perfect before God, is there no hope then? Well,
there is no hope for me in me, but there is hope for sinners
in the grace of God. Grace is God saving us by Christ
alone for reasons not found in us, but only for reasons found
in Himself. God's grace never looks for a
reason in me to save me. The Spirit of God by the Apostle
Paul said this in Romans 3 verse 24, being justified freely, that
is without cause in me, being justified freely by His grace,
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God never looks
at my past for a reason to save me. He never looks at what I
will be someday for a reason to save me. God never shows grace
to me because he expects to get something from me someday. Grace
is God doing everything for me in Christ and it is God looking
to Christ alone for every reason to bless me without any contribution
from me. And we must quickly add this,
grace does not merely attempt to save. God's grace actually
saves. God's grace must exclude all
contributions from me. Paul said it this way in Romans
11.6, If it be of grace, then is it no more of works, otherwise
Grace is no more grace. If we are saved by grace, we
must be saved by grace alone. Grace alone means God saves for
what He thinks of Christ alone. Now, it is not good news to me
to hear that if I do something, then God will bless me. It is
not comforting to me to hear that if I do my part, God will
do His part and keep His promises. It is not good news to me to
hear that one day God will accept me if I do what He requires,
or that someday He will approve of me and bless me if I meet
the conditions required for His blessings. The only good news,
and the only comforting news to me, a sinner, is that God
looks to Christ for everything that He requires from me. My
only hope and comfort in all of my salvation is that God has
received Christ, sacrificed to bear and remove the sins of sinners
like me. Salvation is not forgiveness
and life at the end of a long life of obedience on my part. Salvation is forgiveness and
life given to me in Christ my substitute, who gave himself
in death to satisfy God for the wrong my sins did to him and
to fulfill the obedience his law demands of me. Because God
made Christ all for His people, my salvation is complete, accomplished
by Christ alone, without any contribution from me. I can only
rest in Christ because only His death satisfied God for my sins,
and only His obedience fulfilled God's law. God commands me to
look away from myself to Christ alone. In Isaiah 45 verse 22,
Jesus said, look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the
earth for I am God and there is none else. In salvation, God
designs and gives and brings and does everything. I am the
unworthy recipient of all his blessings in Christ, yet by God-given
faith, I am the happy sinner who finds all God requires in
Christ alone. God's grace never looks to the
future for payback from me. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
is grace that saves me without any contribution from me past,
present, or future. His grace saves because by God's
will Christ died to answer all that His law demands for His
people. Faith is not something I exercise
to get things from God. Faith is a gift God gives to
me to see that all God requires and demands of me He has already
fulfilled and satisfied in Christ. This is the fourth thing we learn
from Matthew 5, 17. Salvation must be by grace from first to
last, and it must be by what Jesus did alone. It does not
depend on me in any way at all. The fifth thing we learn from
Matthew 5 is that Jesus Christ alone fulfilled God's holy law. Jesus said in verse 17, Throughout
his sermon, the Lord himself explains the holiness of his
law. His words convince us that we
have utterly failed in all that He requires. We stand in awe
at the righteousness of God's law and terror that we have broken
it in every way. We are dismayed that we are unable
to do what He requires. Then we learn that the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself fulfilled that law. And then we stand in awe
and wonder and love and admiration that Christ would do that for
us, that God would give Him for that purpose. We then gain a
deeper recognition of God's holiness because God gave His Son to fulfill
that law and only Christ could fulfill it. We realize that to
fulfill God's law requires a love for God's will and His glory
and His people and we admire Christ because we find all of
these in Him alone. We are amazed that he loved and
died for his enemies, for his adulterous wife. He himself did
all he preached in this sermon. He prayed for and forgave his
enemies. Romans 5 verse 10. Jesus alone
fulfilled the law and the prophets to save his people, to bring
them to God, and all of this to God's great glory. Thus, God's
law not only exposes us, condemns us, and shuts us up in the prison
of our sin, but it glorifies God because His law is so holy,
Christ alone could keep it. And we glorify our Savior because
He kept it for His people, in their place, for their righteousness. Romans 8 verse 3-4 teaches us
the same thing. We should read it whenever we
read Matthew 5. It says this, What the law could
not do because it was weak through our sinful flesh, God did by
sending His Son In the likeness of sinful flesh, and in Christ's
flesh, God condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk by the Spirit
of God, believing Christ and Him crucified as all of our salvation
and hope. Romans 8 verse 1-4 is good news
to a man whose natural heart is full of sin, who finds it
impossible to be right and do right in himself, and who understands
that God's law is holy, and yet, who knows, he can't do one thing
to fulfill that law. I may attempt to remove my sin
by plucking out my eyes or cutting off my hands, but by doing these
we are like the scribes and Pharisees trying to enter heaven by what
we do, dressed in the rags of our own filthy righteousness.
That is impossible. Yet what is impossible with men
is possible with God. Oh, thank God. What is impossible
for me is not impossible with God. God did what we could not
do. He cut off sin from His people
when He cut it off in the Lord Jesus Christ, when Christ died
on the cross. God laid the sins of His people
on His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah 53, verse 6. When Christ
died, God condemned their sins in His flesh. The law can never
put away my sin. The law can never put my sin
to death without also putting me to death, because I'm the
one that sinned. I am the sinner. and God's payback
for sin is death. But God, in His incomprehensible
grace, substituted His only begotten Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ, in the place of His sinful people. And when the Lord Jesus
obeyed His Father, when He finished doing all of God's will to save
His people from their sins, by giving His life in offering to
God for the sins of His people by His death on the cross, God
received full satisfaction from Him for the wrong our sins did
to God's holiness. He then raised Him from the dead,
thus we died in Him. Our sin was cut off in Christ,
and Christ fulfilled the righteousness of God's holy law. Romans 10
verse 4 The last thing Jesus said from the cross was, it is
finished. Because God's will was accomplished,
because our salvation was finished, therefore God raised Jesus from
the dead. Jesus said if our hand or eye
causes us to sin, we must cut them off. But in his death, our
entire sinful self was cut off. Death is for sinners, but Christ
put sin to death in his own death. Christ brought his guilty and
helpless people to God. He satisfied God's justice. God,
in justice, now justifies his people for what he received for
them in Christ. As God is holy, so God's law
is holy. There is no hope for any man
to enter heaven by what he has done or by what he can do. It
is impossible. No hope at all. Every man is
guilty. It is impossible to attain to
the righteousness of the law by our own personal obedience. But Christ did what was impossible
for us. He did what he said we must do
and which, in believing, we are assured we did in him. He fulfilled
the law, every jot and tittle, from the smallest mark to the
greatest commandment. He fulfilled the law to love
God and His neighbor as Himself. And the Lord Jesus not only kept
the law completely, but He kept it perfectly. He kept it all
the time. He kept it from His heart. He
understood what God's law really meant. and he came to do it.
He never hated, he never envied, he was never angry without a
righteous cause. Now, a really good man might
die for his friend, but Christ laid down his life for his enemies. God says that in doing so he
established everlasting righteousness for all who look to him alone
with God-given faith. We don't look to what we do,
but to what Christ did. We don't look to our faith, but
to Christ's obedience and sin-atoning blood. We don't look to our hope,
Christ is our hope. We don't look to our looking.
We abandon all hope in ourselves and rest our eternal life in
Christ crucified, not looking for anything else. We depend
on Christ crucified for all of our salvation without looking
for or relying on any backup plan. All of our confidence is
in Him. We have no backup plan. In our
hearts our boats and bridges have been burned. We have no
desire to look back. There is no good thing in us.
But Christ is the good master who finished the will of God
and by His one offering for sin perfected all for whom He died. By one offering He has perfected
forever them that are sanctified. The law made nothing perfect,
but Christ made his people perfect by laying down his life in perfect
obedience to God for them. He is the better hope. Now in
conclusion, the Sermon on the Mount recorded in Matthew chapters
5, 6, and 7 does not tell us what we must do in ourselves
to enter heaven. It does not tell us what we must
do in ourselves to please God. It does not tell us what we must
do in ourselves to be a good Christian. The Sermon on the
Mount explains the righteousness of God's law and tells us where
that righteousness is found. Christ, in the Sermon on the
Mount, tells us of a law so holy that all men are sinners before
God. And he tells us what he, the
only good and holy man, ever did to fulfill God's holy law
in every jot and tittle. It leaves us with only one hope. That hope is Christ. He did not
murder. He loved his enemies. He did
not lust after a woman. He laid down his life to save
and purify his own adulterous people. He did not steal, he
restored what he did not take away by paying the price of his
own life to God as a ransom to redeem us from all iniquity. We must be perfect, but there
is only one way to be perfect. We must find Christ to be all
of our righteousness and perfection before God. What the law could
not do, Christ did in His death. Christ alone fulfilled the righteousness
of God's law. He alone satisfied God's justice
and fulfilled God's law for His elect people in His death on
the cross. He made all of His people righteous
by His obedience. Now, by God-given faith, we look
to Him alone. We do not look to ourselves.
Do we ignore what God requires of us because Christ is our righteousness? Not at all. We glorify God in
believing Christ because faith agrees with God's word that Christ
is our sin payment and all of our righteousness. Second, we
want to be like our Savior. In our new man, we don't want
to sin. But until we enter heaven, we
will go on fighting this fight of faith. We will keep learning
over and over the holiness of God, our own guilt and sinfulness,
the utter impossibility of making ourselves right, and the amazing
grace of God that Christ would do for us what we could never
do. We wait for the time when we
shall see Him as He is and be like Him. What must I do to be saved? You
must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Son
of Man, the one mediator between God and men. You must look to
Him as all of your salvation. Believing Christ is simultaneously
realizing I can do nothing to save myself, but He has done
everything by Himself for His people. It is seeing and calling
upon Christ as all of my salvation. If you see Him as God and man,
the Lord who has become your salvation, then you have been
saved. He gave you that faith, and if
you thus see Him, you will walk in this truth all the days of
your life, giving glory to God, because He receives you for Christ's
sake alone. You've just heard a sermon by
our pastor, Rick Warda. You may contact us by email or
by phone, or download a copy of this sermon by visiting our
website at ysgracechurch.com.