It is not that I did choose thee,
Lord, for 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. Look here in Matthew chapter
7. I don't know about you, but when
I read through the sermon that Jesus gave in Matthew 5, 6, and
7, I'm intimidated. I'm intimidated because I want
to be a disciple of Christ. I want to be saved by the Lord
Jesus Christ. And yet I find in myself more
of an opposition to what I read here than an alignment. And I
read these words with trembling and I pray that God would bless
them to us because there really is a message here. There's a
message for two kinds of people. There's a message for sinners,
and then there's a message for the self-righteous. God help
you to be found as a sinner before Him tonight. In verse 13 of Matthew 7, it
says, Enter ye in at the straight gate. When I was a kid, I always
wondered, what does that mean, straight? Is that S-T-R-A-I-G-H-T,
or is it something else? It's something else. It means
a very narrow passageway or a difficult circumstance, like you would
say the straits of Magellan or we're in dire straits. And here,
Christ, I think, means both. It's narrow and it's difficult.
In fact, he says, enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide
is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction. and many there be which go in
thereat. This is the Lord of glory in
our nature on the earth, speaking to us as a man, but speaking
to us as God in his mercy, telling us about the way things really
are with us and with him. It's very straight, is very narrow,
very difficult to enter in, he says here. enter in at the straight
gate, because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which
leads to life and few there be that find it. In Luke's version
of this, they came to him and they asked him, Lord, are there
few that be saved? And he said, strive to enter
in at the straight gate. Same thing, only a little different.
He said, for those who are to be saved. And here he's speaking
about the way to life. So we know that this gate is
the gateway to heaven, the gateway to life, the gateway of salvation. And he's saying here that the
gate is so narrow that it's difficult to even find it. Imagine traveling
thousands of miles along the coastline looking for a narrow
passage in the sea. And as you're looking and trying
to find it as you pass by the coastline, it's almost like it
becomes a blur. You can't distinguish differences
and contrast because you've been looking at it for so long. That's
how narrow it is. You can't see it. Unless God
opens our eyes, we're entirely dependent here upon the mercy
of God. But that's not the attitude that
those who heard the Lord Jesus speaking here, they thought it
was easy. And so he warns us about such,
he says in verse 15, beware of false prophets which come to
you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
What does sheep look like? They actually look pretty good
to men on the outside. And they're weak on the inside.
And so the false prophets can look good on the outside. How
many times have you met someone who you knew didn't believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, who seemed a lot better than you did? It
seems like that's all the time for me. See, people seem a lot better
than I know myself to be, and I wonder. How? I can even claim a different
sometimes, but here the false prophets are good at looking
good. But they're bad at something. They're false. They have something
called false doctrine, they don't have the truth, they don't have
the gospel. And so Jesus goes on, he says, you shall know them
by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns
or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree brings
forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth
evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
And how often have you read that and you wondered, well, how then
can I have be a good tree since it seems like so much out of
me comes that comes out of me seems evil? But the Lord is talking
here about a kind of fruit that false prophets exhibit. It's
exactly what Moses warned Israel of in Deuteronomy 13. And he
said, how you know a true prophet who brings the word of the Lord
from a false prophet. Deuteronomy 13, he says in verse
one, if there arise among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams
and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes
to pass, whereof he speak unto thee, saying, Let us go after
other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them.
Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that
dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God proveth
you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul. What was the difference between
a false prophet here in Deuteronomy 13 and the true. He was able to do great things,
even miracles. But the difference was that he
didn't speak the truth. He didn't have God's word. He
spoke about idols. And so here in Matthew chapter
7, that's the comparison he's making between the good and the
evil, primarily. It's about those who speak falsehood. And he's going to ferret them
out now. He's going to bring them to light here. He says in
verse 19, every tree that brings not forth good fruit is hewn
down and cast into the fire. Wherefore, by their fruits you
shall know them. Just like Moses told Israel of
old, you'll know them because the false prophets, they speak
about idols. And what are idols but the works
of men's hands? Remember Gideon? God told him
to tear down the grove and the idol to Baal. And he was afraid
to do that, but he did it anyway. And then the men who loved worshiping
Baal, they came to him and came to his father and they said,
who did this? And he says, they found out it
was Gideon. They wanted to kill him. And
Gideon's father, he said, he said something so wise, he says,
If Baal is a god, then let Baal plead for himself. And then he
added this. He says, will you save your god? You see, idols exhibit the exact
opposite of the true and living God. God saves his people. God pleads for his people. But
idols need men to plead and save them. And here we see this. because he says they're going
to be cast into the fire, the false prophets. Verse 21. And here's the text for the sermon
tonight. These next three verses. Not
everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into
the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my father,
which is in heaven. Now, as soon as I read that verse,
a couple of things come to my mind. First, this is the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's telling us about what will
take place. He's prophesying about the future. And when he prophesies about
the future, He's really telling us history before history unfolds. Because whenever God speaks about
what will be, there's no possibility that it cannot be. It will happen. God calls those things which
be not as though they were. And so, the Lord Jesus Christ,
as God speaks to us about the future. And here these men, they
say to Him, Lord, Lord, they're pleading with Him. Now I, I'm
a softy. Sometimes I think when you're
really angry and then someone starts pleading with you and
you really ought to go ahead and let them have it. Then you
get softened up and you think, well, okay, maybe I was too hard,
too quick to judge. But notice here, Christ is in
the seat of the judge in this verse. And here's some men coming
to Him and pleading with Him. But it's too late. It's too late. And not only that, but they plead
the wrong thing. Because he tells them, it doesn't
matter how much pleading you make and call me Lord, Lord,
or Lord, Lord, or whatever you say. You won't enter the kingdom
of heaven unless you do the will of my father, which is in heaven.
In fact, he goes on in verse 22. He says, this is the way
it's going to work out. Because when we read these words,
not everyone, what's the first thing that comes to your mind?
There's a large crowd. In fact, there's a few of them
that don't quite make it. But this next verse, verse 22,
read it. Many will say to me in that day. Do you see that? Many. Now I
don't know how many people have ever been born into the world
since creation, but you can bet it's a large number. I happen
to try to estimate it because I'm curious about those kinds
of things. And I got a large number. I'm embarrassed to say
how large it was. So I went to the Google and and
they gave me a much smaller number. So I figured, okay, I'll go the
conservative number. It's over 100 billion. That's
some secular person talking. I think it's probably closer
to hundreds of billion. How many people have been born?
How many people are in the world today? Six, seven, 10 billion? I don't know. But over the course
of all of the history of years and time, all of those people,
every one of them, it says in Romans 14, that we are all going
to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And then it says
also in 2 Corinthians 5.10, that every one of us shall appear
and shall give an account of himself to God. Now, I don't
know about you, but nothing gives me greater pause and solemnity
than those words. To have to stand before the Lord
and to give an account. to give an account to the one
who sees everything, all of the motives, all of the thoughts,
every word, every idle word, and every deed, and to give an
account. And so the title of tonight's
message is this, The Only Correct Answer to the Ultimate Question. The only correct answer. I used
to go to college, and when I was in college I had a professor
who liked to give pop quizzes. And before he gave a quiz, he
would say, I have a gift for you. Now, he gave quizzes so
that we would know if we knew how to do the work. He knew the
work, but he wanted us to know if we were ready for what? For
the test. And most courses in college have
a final exam. And if you don't pass the final,
if it's a decent course, usually you don't pass the test. You
don't pass the course at all. It doesn't matter how much homework
you did or how many other tests you take. If you don't pass the
final, you just don't pass. Judgment day is the final. This is just a pretest. It's
just a gift for you. And I say that with care because
here I stand And I claim to have the answer from God for you and
for me. Because the answer I have for
you is the same answer that I am depending on. And it's the same
answer, thankfully, that the scriptures give to us. So the
question is this. Here's the question. We're going
to get to the answer, but what's the question? How are you going
to give an account of yourself to God? How are you going to
answer the Lord of glory? What are you going to say? What
defense can you give? Or I could ask it this way. What
right do you have to say, I am a Christian? I met a young man. We were traveling from Southern
California back home. Just a few weeks ago, a couple
of weeks ago. And everyone in the car except me needed to stop.
So we just pulled over at the nearest McDonald's. They got
out. I got out to stretch my legs. And right there, outside
the car, there's this young man. He walks up to me and he says,
I used to be a heroin addict. I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Would you like to donate to our church? And at first I thought,
wow, here's somebody. I really had some sympathy for
this young man. And so I, I didn't know what
to do like I normally don't when people ask me for a donation.
So I gave him something. It was not, it was insignificant.
But then I was, you know, I'm slow. So I thought, you know,
I need to ask him a question. He needs to have a gift, a little
pop quiz. So I asked him, what do you believe
about the Lord Jesus Christ? What do you believe? And he told
me. And the Lord Jesus tells us what
these men here said to that question. Because they're standing before
him in verse 21. And he says, not everyone that
says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.
But he that doeth the will of my father, which is in heaven,
many will say to me in that day, Lord. Lord. And listen to their response. Listen to what they say. First
thing, notice this. What did they say to the Lord?
They called Jesus Christ the Lord. They said, effectively,
Jesus is Lord. And they actually spoke to Him
directly. And they said, you're the Lord.
You're the Lord. Lord, Lord, you're the Lord.
You know what they did? The Lord Jesus ultimately sent
them away. He sent them to depart. They
didn't have the right answer. And that makes me tremble. And
so he says, many will say to me in that day, have we not prophesied
in thy name? Now, I'll read the other two.
He says, and in thy name have cast out devils. and in thy name
done many wonderful works. And the word there for wonderful
works means wonders, miracles, things that cannot be done apart
from the help, the miracle of God. Now, I don't know about
you, but whenever I think about how to answer and when I ask
this young man, for example, what do you believe? And I want
you to think about this yourself before we get to the answer.
Look at the question on the quiz. How will you stand before the
Lord of glory? What account will you give? What
will you say in defense of yourself? How can you answer and what answer
will you give? Notice what they said. They actually
were very wise in their strategy. They asked Jesus a question.
He's the judge after all. He has to come to the conclusion. He's the one that's going to
make the decision. So they actually put the question back on him
and notice what they say. Have we not? They ask him a question. They didn't say, you know what
we've done. They didn't say that. But they say, Lord, would you
search the books of evidences, as it were? Would you look into
what has actually occurred? And find out, haven't we actually
prophesied in your name? And it wasn't just we prophesied,
we said something like Balaam. No, we actually did it in the
name of Jesus Christ. In the name of, we called him
Lord and we taught and preached in his name. And I think about
that. And one thing that teaches you
right away, If you preach and teach in the name of Jesus Christ,
it doesn't mean that you're going to make it into life. It doesn't
mean that you're safe. It does not mean that you're
going to enter heaven. And you know what? If the teacher
and the preacher Who preaches something false as the basis
of entering heaven if they don't enter? And how are those who
are their congregation going to enter in? Who believe what
they say? I imagine Judgment Day something
like this, because I've had to go to court as a jurist and I've
seen the way that the courts work from the outside. Imagine
these hundreds of billions of people waiting to go into court. They're all outside the room
and each person, each individual at one point is going to be called
in to stand before the judge to give an account And each one
of these people outside the courtroom, I can imagine it's just like
it was in school before the final. We're all wringing our hands.
What do you do about this? How do you give an answer for
that kind of a problem? What is the solution? And outside
the courtroom, I can see it in my mind's eye. People are sharing
their answers. And I hear some of them and groups
begin to form. And here's the Christian group.
And I hear these preachers and these teachers and they say,
I haven't got a problem. I prophesied in the name of Jesus
Christ. What I did, I did in the name
of Jesus. And I also cast out devils. Now, that isn't helping people.
Don't tell me about helping people. And I did wonders in his name
and I can hear their congregations. Oh, I wish I was in that position.
Man, if I could trade places with that man right now, if I
could have just traded places with him. And so as you're listening
to these questions, you even begin to ask yourself this question. How am I going to answer? Turn with me to Matthew chapter
12. Because I'll tell you what you're going to say right now.
You might not believe it, but you're going to do this. He says
in verse 34, Oh, generation of vipers, a viper is a snake, the
seed of the serpent. That's what the Pharisees were.
They were the seed of the serpent, right? Their father, the devil.
And he says, oh, generation of vipers, how can you being evil
speak good things? You see what the issue was? It's
what they said about the truth. How can you? Because you know
why? Here's why. Because out of the abundance
of your heart, the mouth speaketh. Do you know what you say? It's
whatever you believe. Do you know what you'll say on
the day of judgment? It's what's in your heart. and
your conscience will force your mouth to speak only what you
know, only what you depend upon, only what you're relying on.
You can't help it. What else are you gonna speak?
What somebody said in a book of theory somewhere you never
could remember, it's too late. That's what they speak. That's
what I'll speak. That's what you will speak. So
you know what you're gonna say already on the day of judgment.
It's what you believe. It's what you are convinced in
your heart is the account that you can give to God that he will
accept. And that's why this is a pop
quiz, a pretest, because we all need to face this question. What
would you say? Notice what these men say. The
first thing they say is, Lord, Lord. But the next thing they
say is I. I, this is what I did. And but
they didn't say it quite like they weren't that brash. They
were a little more. They were a little smarter, more
strategizing than that. They were they were pretty slick.
They said they're pleading for their lives. They're not playing
around here. It's not a game. It's not it's
not a. It's not a philosophy class.
This is real. This is going to happen. This
is history in the future. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ
says is going to take place. And it's not just a few, it's
many. What kind of people were these? These people were professing
Christians. How do you know that? Because
they called Jesus Lord. And because they said they did
all these things in his name. You don't spend your life doing
things in the name of Jesus without professing to be a Christian.
Right? Not only were they professing
Christians, but they were the ones who were up front. They
were the ones at the head of the class opening whatever they
opened and preaching and teaching it. These were men that went
to hell. These are men that the Lord Jesus
Christ said to them, I never, never knew you. And notice what
he says in verse 23. Depart from me. You that work
iniquity. You work iniquity. What are you
talking about? These things you've done, you
are workers of iniquity. How could he say that? Well,
it's true. The Lord cannot corrupt judgment. He's going to say things just
like they are. You can't change the books. You
can't change the way things are. He's going to judge right there.
What then can you say? Job asked it this way. How can
a man be just with God? In fact, turn to Job chapter
9. Look at this together with me. Because a similar thing took
place in Job chapter 9. Remember Job had some friends?
You remember what happened to Job? He was afflicted by the
Lord. He lost all of his cattle. He lost his house. He lost his
children. He lost his wealth. He lost everything. And not only that, but he was
afflicted in his body. He couldn't rest. Constant affliction. And he had these three men who
were called his friends. One of them's name was Bildad
in chapter 8 of Job. And notice what Bildad says to
Job in verse 2. How long will you speak these
things? And how long shall the words
of thy mouth be as like the strong wind? Does God pervert judgment? Or does the Almighty pervert
justice? How can you argue with that?
Then he goes on and he this is cruel. Verse four, if your children
have sinned against him and he's cast them away for their transgression. Well, if you would seek God at
times and make your supplication to the almighty, if you were
pure and upright, surely now he would awake for thee and make
the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous. In other words, if
you were pure, Job, Even though your children were destroyed
for their wickedness, if you were pure, if you were supplicating
God, look what he says in verse 20, Bill goes on. He says, Behold,
God will not cast away a perfect man. Neither will he help the
evildoers. What can you say to that? If
you're Job, well, you might rise up in self-righteous indignation
and say, I'm no worse than you. But that's not what Job said.
Look what he says in Job 9. Verse two, I know it is so of
a truth. God cannot pervert justice. He
can't pervert judgment. But how shall a man be just with
God? He's thinking about himself.
He knows his own heart. If he will contend with him,
if God will contend with a man, he can't answer him. One of a
thousand. All these sins, if God were to bring them before
me, I can't answer for one of them. And then he says a little
further down, verse 13, if God will not withdraw his anger,
the proud helpers do stoop under him. In other words, if kings
of the earth have got to bow to the Lord Jesus Christ, if
even the angels who kept not their first estate fell and they
had to stoop under him and confess him as Lord. How much less shall
I answer him and choose out my words to reason with him? How
in the world can I possibly answer the justice of God who sits on
the throne? In fact, he says in verse 15,
whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not know? Would I
not answer if I were righteous before men? If you could find
no fault in me, Bill, dad. I still couldn't stand before
God and give an answer. And look at verse 20. Remember,
Bildad said in chapter 8, verse 20, that God will not cast away
a perfect man. Here, Job says, if I justify
myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me. Why? Because his
heart would rise up, his conscience would rise up and condemn him.
And if I say I'm perfect, like you said, I need to be, it shall
also prove me perverse. You see what he's saying? He's
not saying what those in Matthew chapter 7 said, is he? He's saying, I cannot answer
the judge of all the earth when it comes to my own righteousness. I cannot answer. I can't take
what I have done in my life, even the things that I've done
by the help of God. I cannot bring them to God. I
cannot do it. Not one of them. Why not? We just sang it. Holy, holy,
holy is the Lord God Almighty. We cannot answer God. And you know why else? Because
God himself tells us already our condition in our state. He
says there's none righteous, not even one. There's none that
do with good. These men claim to be doing good,
didn't they? No, it wasn't good. He said, you're workers of iniquity.
The law was given to silence sinners. Romans 3.19. Now 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 become guilty before God. That's why the law was given. And why did Jesus say these men
were workers of iniquity? Because they took the law and
they used it for an unlawful purpose. They tried to establish
their own righteousness. They tried to obtain salvation
by something they could do, even though what they did was supposedly
with the help and grace of God. The Catholic Church confesses
the way that we're justified before God is by doing good works
with grace. That is not true. That is not
true. It says by the deeds of the law,
whether you do them. and you say you're doing them
apart from the grace of God, or whether you say you're doing
them with the grace of God, by doing anything God requires,
you yourself, you cannot be righteous before God. It doesn't matter
how good it is. Can you talk what these men did?
Have you spent your life prophesying and teaching in the name of Jesus
Christ? Have you cast devils out, or worked wonders, and many,
many wonders, or even one? Do you recognize that Job had
more wisdom than you had and that you cannot stand before
God in yourself? And do you accept the condemnation
of God's testimony himself against us, that there's an unrighteous,
not one? Is there no hope then? Can a
sinner do nothing to help himself? Actually, The answer is no, he
cannot do anything. A sinner is a sinner. Salvation
is a rescue mission. It's not a self-help. Salvation
is not an influencing kind of a situation where God influences
people to be good and through a lot of influence they get better
and better and finally become acceptable. Salvation is not
an offer where God has done something for you, and now you need to
attach yourself to it by something that you bring, like faith, or
a decision, or sincerity, or an experience, or any of those
things. Salvation is not a mutual contract between God and man.
Salvation is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ for His people,
according to the eternal counsel of God, to bring glory to God,
so that you get no glory. If you're saved, you're saved
entirely by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what true
salvation is. And these men took the law, they
took whatever law they thought they had, which was the Christian
code or something, these things they needed to do, and they tried
to fulfill it. They tried to dedicate their
lives to establish the Lordship of Christ in their life, or whatever
it was that seemed good to Christians, and used that as the basis for
their defense before Christ. And it failed. It absolutely
failed. Isn't it merciful that the Lord
Jesus Christ pulls out the quiz that the guys in the year before
us took and failed? Sometimes they would do that.
A professor would post their results from previous finals
and you'd go there and hungrily look at those answers and questions
and try to figure it all out. Think, I hope he asked this question
this year. The same question is going to be asked of each
one of us. How do you stand? How can you give a defense? How
can you answer and give an account of yourself to the Lord Jesus
Christ? Now, if I had a friend who wanted
to climb Half Dome in Yosemite and they came to me and they
asked me for advice and said, I'm going to climb Half Dome.
And of course, I hate heights. I don't want to, I don't even
like to, I remember standing on the top of a dam one time
and looking over the edge and just pulling back. I just didn't
like that at all. And anytime my kids get close
to anything like that, I'm backing up as I'm trying to pull them.
It's just not something I like. But if someone, one of my friends,
dear to me, asked me, what kind of rope would you use if you
were to climb Half Dome? You know what I would do? I would
make a diligent search to make sure that I didn't suggest buying
the wrong kind of rope. Now, if I'm giving you the answer
that your soul depends upon to keep from falling into eternal
perdition, you can bet that it's going to be the same rope that
I would buy for myself. And it's going to be the same
rope when I stand before God and I see you there too. And
I hear, if I were giving the false teacher and false preacher
hope, their answer didn't work. And they heard the cries of those
who believed their answer and took their answer to the bank.
And it didn't work. They went into the courtroom.
They saw them go in. They didn't know what happened.
Their answer, I don't know. Did his answer work? I don't
know what happened on it. We'll find out when we get there.
That didn't work. And they heard the cries of them
thinking, oh, that pastor, that teacher, whoever it was that
told me this, they were wrong. But you know what? If you stand
before the Lord and you can't give an account because you don't
know the answer, it's not going to be someone else's fault. It's
going to be all your fault. God's going to hold you accountable.
Jesus said, sin doesn't come from the outside and kind of
ooze through you and make you sin. No, sin comes from the heart. Out of the heart of man come
evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, wickedness, and all these things,
blasphemies. It comes from your own heart.
And what keeps you from going through the narrow gate, the
gate that's difficult to come to, It's not just your sin, it's
mostly what kept these men going through. It was mostly their
righteousness. It says in Romans chapter 9,
but Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, have
not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they sought it not
by faith. but as it were by the works of
the law, for they stumbled at that stumbling stone. And who
is that? The Lord Jesus Christ. What answer can I give? What
answer can you give? What is the only answer that
God will accept? In fact, I believe this is the
answer to every question that's important. You know, sometimes
I would have a teacher who would give us 30 or 40 or 50 questions
on a test. And you go, man, how in the world
do they expect me to finish this test? But I felt like I had a
shot at it at least, you know. If I get through, I don't know,
80% of them, I'm probably doing okay. But here we got a test
with only one question on it. And if you missed this one, you
flunked it. It just seems so hard. But here's
the good news. The answer? There's just one
answer that works here. There's only one answer. And
this answer is found in one of my favorite verses. This is why
it's my favorite. I hope they put this on my tombstone. Romans
chapter eight and verse 34. This is the answer to every important
question. What is your present confidence
before God to come to him? Is it anything but this? Look
at Romans 8, 34. Who is he that condemneth? And
here's the answer. I told you we'd get to it. Aren't
you glad that God put this answer in the Bible? It took me a long
time to find it. It took me all my life. Well,
it seems like I find it every day. You ever found that to be
the case? You get up in the morning and
you think, man, I thought I was a Christian when I went to bed,
but this morning it doesn't feel like it. And any little perturbation in
your life, it just seems like it amplifies all that. But here
he says, who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. It's Christ that died. Can you
imagine your tombstone here? Oh, it's Christ that died. I wonder who lies here. It doesn't
matter. It's Christ that died. That's
what matters. What is your present confidence?
To come to God. The Lord Jesus Christ is able
to save them who come to God by him. How much? How much can
he save them? Barely? With your help? With
something that comes from you eventually? No. Salvation is
not a barely salvation. He says we're more than conquerors
through him that loved us. More than conquerors. Not just
little conquerors. In Christ, we've triumphed over
sin and death and the devil and the flesh and the world and everything
that we think is the consequence of our sin. We deserve what God
is. Yeah. And God, in his grace,
has seen that as your enemy. And in Christ, he's conquered
it. And so he says here. Our present
confidence, it's Christ that died. How do you know that salvation
cannot be gotten by anything from you? How do you know that
salvation is not because of some influencing process where God
can work through you and eventually make you like what you need to
be, whatever that is, and able to do what you're able to do?
Why didn't God save you that way? Because it required something
far greater. It's Christ that died. If God
could have saved you by influence, why did he kill his son? Why
did he lay iniquity on his son? I know that this is an easy answer
to remember. I hope I can remember it. But you know what? I like the
answer the thief on the cross gave. I don't trust my memory
through this process called death. Lord, would you remember me? You know why? Because not only
did the Lord Jesus Christ give an answer at the cross, not only
does he give that answer now in my conscience, but he has
to also be my answer at judgment day. And when we stand before
the judge of all the earth, you know what you can say, Lord,
if you don't answer for me, I don't have an answer. And if your answer
is not the perfect righteousness that you established, that eternal
everlasting righteousness that merits eternal life from God,
and if your answer, which you gave with your own blood, is
not sufficient to cleanse me from all my sin, and if your
everlasting love is not good enough to hold me in the bonds
of that love, even through death, as it says in the Song of Solomon
8.6, I don't have a hope. I can't do it. I am unrighteous. I am vile before you. If I said
I was perfect, my own mouth would prove me perverse. But this answer
gives the answer to so many questions. How do we know the love of God
to his people? It's Christ that died. How holy
is God? It's Christ that died. How bad
is your sin? It's Christ that died. Was the
sacrifice Jesus made of himself on the cross enough or is something
more needed? It's Christ that died. How do
I know that what Jesus did is enough for me? How do I know
that what Jesus did is mine? How do I know that Jesus died
for me? If because Christ died, all you
have before God is answered, then what he did is enough. If
everything that matters to God is what Jesus did on the cross,
then if everything that matters to you in the security and the
keeping and the saving of your soul, your entrance into glory
and life itself is what Jesus did on the cross and his answer
that he gives for his people. If that's enough, then Christ
died for you. Because you can only come to
that conviction in your conscience if the Spirit of God causes you
to see the Lord Jesus Christ cursed for you. You cannot produce
it. You're helpless in this thing.
But wonderfully, through the preaching of God's Word, Here
these men are in Matthew 7. They failed the test because
they tried to obtain salvation by something they did, even if
it was done in the right name and with the right power. They
came depending on what they did. They never came as sinners, helpless
and hopeless except for the grace of God in Christ Jesus. They
never came the way, the only way that God saves sinners. The
gate is narrow, it's straight, it's so tough and hard to get
through. The only way you can get through it is if Christ died
for you and He sends His Spirit to teach you that it's Christ
that died answers God for you. Amen. 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.