Alright, let's turn in our Bibles
to Ephesians 4. Ephesians chapter 4. One more time. The singing sounded
really good, and I enjoyed and appreciate that scripture reading
too. Thank you very much. Let's read
this last verse. Ephesians 4.32. And be ye kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's
sake, hath forgiven you." This is the great purpose for
everything. For Christ's sake. That's the purpose for everything.
That's why everything has come about. That's why the things
that are happening now are coming about. That's why the things
that shall come to pass will come about for Christ's sake. Everything is for Christ's sake. He said in Colossians 1.16, everything
was created for Him. And that all things, in all things,
He might have the preeminence. So everything is for Christ's
sake. And the Lord's going to use everybody in this world,
me, you, saint, rebel, it doesn't matter who, He's going to use
everybody to accomplish that end of giving Christ all preeminence. Scripture says the wicked were
made for the day of evil. He's going to accomplish this
purpose of glorifying His Son. Every knee is going to bow and
every tongue is going to confess that He's Lord. And it's going
to be to the glory of God the Father. To the glory of God the
Father. Now, believer, everything we
have, every blessing we have of God is for Christ's sake. Beginning to end, everything
is for Christ's sake. This is the one great motive.
The one great motive. In everything God does, in all
his purpose, and in everything that believers do, this is the
only true motive. It's for Christ's sake. You notice there, both we are
exhorted by this motive, and then he says, in God, forgave
us because of this. He says they're forgiving one
another, even as God. Here's the motive, for Christ's
sake, have forgiven you. That's the chief motive, for
Christ's sake, for Christ's sake. And here's the first question
I have for you. Why do we need forgiveness? Why
do we need forgiveness? You hear folks going around in
religion talking about forgiveness and all of this. But you just
sit and think about the word forgiveness. Why do you need
forgiveness? It's because we're sinners. It's
because of sin. Now, do we know about sin? Do
we know what sin is? Do we know about sin? And this is true of a believer.
I need forgiveness because I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. When I was nothing but a natural
born sinner the first time, all I did was sin. Everything that
comes from my old man now is sin. Ain't no good that comes
from the old man. That's the product of Adam. That's
the product of the fall. That's the baby conceived from
Adam's corrupt seed. There can be nothing good come
from our flesh. That's true of believers. That's
true of believers. Turn over to Romans 7. Listen
to this. This is a believer. This is a
regenerated believer. Listen to what he said right
here. In verse 18, I know that in me,
and he qualifies that. It qualifies that. And he lets
you know what he's talking about. What part of me are you talking
about? Because you don't want to blame God for anything. We
don't want to blame God for anything. If you're a believer, you've
got a new man that's created of God. And you're not talking
about the new man. He's talking about this old man.
Now, what does he say? I know that in me, that is in
my flesh, in my nature, in my sin nature, dwelleth no good
thing. For to will is present with me."
That's in my new man. That's present with me. To will
is present with me. I didn't have that before, but
he gave me that. To will is present with me, but
how to perform that which I would, or that which is good, I find
not. For the good that I would, I do not. But the evil which
I would not, that I do. Now, if I do that, I would not. It's no more I that do it, but
sin that dwelleth in me. See, there's a law in that. Everything that the believer
would do, sin's mixed with it. Sin's mixed with it. So we can't
come to God. We can't be accepted of God as
believers because of any kind of goodness in us, because of
what we've done. We come to God in Christ. We
come to God in Christ alone. We need forgiveness now for Christ's
sake. For Christ's sake. And that's
why God gives us forgiveness. That's why we can come to that
fountain of blood and wash in that cleansing fountain. And
it says He's faithful and just to forgive us. It's for Christ's
sake. It's for Christ's sake. Now,
can we say with all honesty that I'm a sinner? That I'm a sinner. That's all I am in my flesh is
a sinner. That's all I am. I need forgiveness. I need forgiveness. So if we
see our sin and we see what we are, he says there to us, he's
teaching us here to be tender-hearted, to be kind, to forgive one another. If I see what I am in my flesh,
I know something about my sin in my flesh, and a fellow believer
Does something to me, says something to me, or an unbeliever for that
matter. How can I not forgive him? How
could I not forgive him? When I see what's in me, when
I see what God's done for me, how could I not forgive him?
Now, here's my second question. I want to look at this one reason
that God forgave us, brethren. He says here, it's for Christ's
sake. For Christ's sake. And you just
think about this, God that we sinned against. God that we sinned
against. That very God sent his only begotten
son. And he did it so that he could
forgive us. He did it so he could forgive us. He sent his only
begotten Son. He had a people, and he's going
to forgive that people. But the only way he can forgive
that people is if he does it in a manner that's consistent
with his holy character, with his justice. He's got to be just. He's just, and he's going to
do things justly. And this is the truth. God could
not forgive us, brethren. He couldn't forgive us until
our sin had been dealt with. Until our sin had been dealt
with, until His law had been honored, until it had been magnified.
And so He sent forth His Son to magnify and honor His law,
to manifest His righteousness, and to save His people from our
sins. That's why He sent forth His
Son, because the justice of God must be carried out. And the
One that came forth, brethren, He is God. He is God. That's why the scripture says
God is both just and he's the justifier, because that one who
came forth is God. The Son of God came forth and
he laid down his life for us. I mean, from the moment he came
into this world, he was laying down his life for us. You remember
whenever Nehemiah, remember Nehemiah? He was up there in the palace
at Shushan, and after they'd been redeemed and brought out
of captivity, he was in the palace at Shushan. He was the king's
cupbearer. And he had it pretty easy where
he was. And he heard that his brethren
down there in Jerusalem, he heard the walls were broke down, and
he heard the city was broke down, and his brethren were in affliction,
and they were reproached. You know what he did? He left
that palace and he went to where his brethren were. That's what
Christ did. Christ left the presence where
he were, the palace where he was with God, and he came to
this broken down, cursed city we live in and came to where
we are for his people. He came for us, brethren. Look
at 1 John in chapter 4. 1 John in chapter 4. This is God's only begotten Son. In verse 9, he says, "...in this
was manifested the love of God toward us." Here's how we see
the love of God, because that God sent His only begotten Son,
His only begotten Son, into the world that we might live through
Him. to give us life, to make certain
that His people shall live. That's what it means. Herein
is love, not that we love God. That's how I know that that means
He came to make certain we'll live, because if He left it to
us, we'd have never chosen God. We'd have never loved God. And
He says we didn't love Him, but He loved us and sent His Son
to be the propitiation. And if you take to be out, it
says he sent his son, the propitiation. His son is the satisfaction for
our sins. His son is the atonement for
our sins. That's who his son is. And that's
what he accomplished. Oh, he says, beloved, if God
so loved us, we ought also to love one another. God's provision,
it both gave Christ, it was to do two things when He sent His
Son. It was to give Christ all preeminence,
and it was to save His people. And both of those things were
accomplished on Calvary's cross. Both of those were accomplished
on Calvary's cross. God manifests His great love
for His people, and He manifests His great love for His Son on
Calvary's cross, right there on the tree. Because He gave
His Son the honor of doing this work. He gave him the honor,
the glory of accomplishing this work, and promised when it was
finished, he would raise him to his right hand as the God-man
mediator, and give him all power in heaven and earth, and give
him all authority in heaven and earth, and give him all judgment
into his hand. He had all that as the Son, but
he's got it now as the man who is God, the God-man. And he did that on Calvary's
tree. See, it's an honor. It's an honor
for you and I to be kind to one another and tenderhearted and
forgiven to one another. That was the honor he gave his
son. That's how he would give his son all preeminence in this. And we're going to only understand
this if God saves us by his grace. But God came to where we are.
And when Christ went to that cross, brethren, On that cross,
He fulfilled all righteousness.
Now, He is that righteousness, but when you look at the law,
you see the law is holy, just, and good. That's Christ. That's Christ. Christ is the
righteousness of the law. He's holy, He's just, and He's
good. But in order to give us His righteousness,
our sins have got to be dealt with. It's got to be put away.
So when Christ goes to that cross, He's fulfilling everything. He's fulfilling everything. He's
fulfilling the righteousness of the law. He's justifying His
people from our sins. The Scripture says this, the
Apostle Paul said, that all the laws fulfilled in one word, even
this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. The fulfillment of
the law is love. Loving your neighbor as yourself. And nobody here, none of us,
have done this. Not in righteousness. God requires
it to be done. We haven't done this. Here's
what he did. And I think I've said that. I
think I've preached this here. I try to preach it everywhere
I go. But I know this is the truth. I know this is so. When
Christ went to that cross, He loved his father perfectly. He was showing and working out
and doing what he did because it was love to his father perfectly. And at the same time, it was
love to his people perfectly. Perfectly. That's the righteousness
of the law. That's the righteousness of the
law. Now, that's the righteousness he is. What I'm trying to say
is, yes, he fulfilled all righteousness. He fulfilled that law. He loved
his neighbor as himself. He fulfilled that, no doubt.
But he didn't have to strive to do that. That's just natural
to him. That's who he is. That's who
he is. He's righteousness. He is perfect,
the perfect love of perfect righteousness. That's who Christ is. And when
he went to that cross, that's what he was doing for God and
for his people. And he filled that law full,
brethren. He's the fulfillment of it. When
God gave the law, he gave it as a means to an end. And that
end is Christ. And when you get to the end of
the law and you meet Christ, you meet the righteousness of
the law, the righteousness of God. That's who we meet. And when he was on that cross,
fulfilling righteousness, showing us what righteousness is, loving
his father and his brother as himself, at the same time, he
was completely putting away our sins. He was totally justifying
us. So there you've got the precept
penalty of the law being fulfilled at one time. You've got Him there
hanging on that cross, bearing the sin of His people in His
own body on the tree, bearing the just judgment of God because
of it, being made a curse for His people. And at the same time,
you have the Holy One who's holy in His heart, perfectly fulfilling
all that's right. You have there that one who's
at one moment he is forsaken of God, God's turned his back
on him, God's forsaken him there in just judgment. He's dying
the second death on the cross. He's dying that living death.
He's dying the death of justice on the cross. And at the very
same time, in his holy heart, God is well pleased and satisfied
with him. Because of what he's doing. It's just a mystery. It's a wonder
to just gaze there upon it and to see this. And that act, brethren, that
act that he did there, it shows us exactly who he is, exactly
who he is. So now, brethren, if a man is
going to come to God, Do you think God's going to take anything
less than His Son? Do you think God's going to take
anything less than we come to Him glorifying His Son and saying,
this one right here is the only one who's ever, ever fulfilled
righteousness? He is all my righteousness. Do
you think God will take less than that? He won't. He won't. You remember over in Romans 9?
Remember over there in Romans 9, it says, What shall we say
then? The Gentiles, which followed
not after the law. Here they were, they'd have the
law at Mount Sinai. They didn't even have it. And
beyond that, they weren't trying to obtain a righteousness. They'd
had no thoughts of God. They were without Christ, without
hope, without God in this world. That's us, brethren. That's us. And they were idolaters, they
made up gods and were worshiping gods and it was just all vanity.
And they attained the righteousness. They attained the righteousness,
the righteousness which is of faith. God came to them and he
regenerated them, he gave them faith, he gave them repentance,
he gave them life, he gave them everything and brought them to
the feet of his son and made them cast all their care on his
son. And he said, now you're righteous,
you're righteous. And then there was these other
folks, Israel, and they had the law. They had the law and they
tried to attain to righteousness. They tried to keep that law.
They worked at keeping that law. They strove to keep that law.
They were doing everything they could to keep that law. And if
men, if men, you looked at them, we'd say this is the most righteous
folks around. Outwardly speaking, And it says,
but they did not attain to the righteousness of God. You know
why? God won't take less than his
son. God wouldn't take that pretended
righteousness. God wouldn't take that that was
just a superficial, on the surface, on the outside righteousness. He wouldn't take that. We wouldn't if it was our son. This is God's son. They stumbled
at that stumbling stone. They stumbled at Christ. They
stumbled at Christ. Brethren, lay down on Christ.
That's the sure way not to stumble. Lay down on Christ. Lay down
on Him. I picture salvation being somewhat
like a cruise ship. You get on a cruise ship. Do you go up and get in the wheelhouse
and start trying to tell the captain how to do things? You
get on that cruise ship and you lay down on the easy chair back
there in the back and you enjoy the ride home. Well, get in Christ
and lay down and enjoy the ride home because He's doing it all. He's done it all. He's doing
it all and He shall do it all. This is Christ. This is the Redeemer,
brethren. Oh, just think about this. Think about what a blessing it
is, brethren, that God allowed us to fall in a representative. Isn't that wonderful? He allowed
us to fall in a representative. Men hate that. Natural man hates
that. Because they say that means if
I fell in him and I made righteous in another, I don't have anything
to do with it. Sinner? We like it, don't we? Because
I don't need to have anything to do with it. If I put my hand
through it, I'm all corrupted. But just think about the blessing
of falling in a representative. When I look at that garden and
I see Eve there, and Eve takes that fruit, and she ate that
fruit, and nothing happened. Nothing happened. That thrilled
my soul, brethren. Nothing happened. I'm sure if
Adam did what he did, I'm sure God would have chastened Eve,
because what she did was against God's law. And he would have
chastened her for it. But when she ate that fruit,
nothing happened. Why? She was represented in her
head, in Adam. It wasn't until Adam ate that
she fell. Do you know what that means for
us, brethren? Because the Lord Jesus Christ is our righteousness. We sin. Sin is mixed with all
we do. We don't want to. We delight
in the law of God. We would love to serve God perfectly. Wouldn't you? I hate my sin. I wish I could serve God perfectly. But this is the good news, brethren.
When we sin, God will correct us because He loves us. And He
says He chastens all those He loves. He's going to correct
us when we sin. He loves His own. He's going
to correct His children. But when we sin before God, nothing
happens. Why? Because we're represented
in Christ. In our head. Just like nothing
happened when Eve ate. Nothing's going to happen when
his children eat. Now, that don't make you want
to sin. That makes you not want to sin. That makes you so happy
and so thrilled you don't know what to do. Brethren, that is
a blessing. That is a blessing. Oh, I love
it. I love it. I love it. All right, here's the third thing.
What's God done for us for Christ's sake? He sent His Son. We saw what His Son did. Now
what else has He done for us for Christ's sake? He's forgiven
us. He's forgiven us. He's forgiven
us. Just think about this, brethren.
For one motive only, for one reason only, for Christ's sake,
He sent a preacher to you and me. Sure did. They preach the truth. That's
a blessing. You know how many preachers there are in this world?
And do you know how few preach the gospel? Anybody can become
a preacher. Only God sends His preacher.
And that's Christ, brethren. That's Christ fulfilling prophecy.
He said in Jeremiah 3, 315, I believe, He said, I will give you pastors
after my own heart. Who fulfills prophecy? Christ
does. And Christ gives preachers after His own heart that will
feed you, He said, with knowledge and understanding. He does that
for no reason but for Christ's sake. He did that. And then for
no reason but for Christ's sake, He made us to hear. He sent forth
the Holy Spirit and He gave us life and He gave us an understanding
heart, a hearing ear, a seeing eye, an understanding heart to
hear what was being preached to us. He gave us a delight that
we didn't have. And for one motive only, for
Christ's sake only, He brought us to the feet of Christ. No
man comes to the Son except my Father which is in heaven. Draw
him, Christ said. He drew us to His Son and brought
us there and set us down at the feet of Christ and said, now
this one right here, he's wisdom. and is your wisdom. He's righteousness
and is your righteousness. He's sanctification and is your
sanctification. He's redemption and is your redemption. For Christ's sake, we've been
taught of the Father. He taught us. And for Christ's
sake, when He brought us to cast all our care on Christ, for Christ's
sake, He said to us, I remember your sins no more. Past, present
and future. I remember your sins no more. Isn't that something? Isn't that
something? He did that for Christ's sake.
This word for Christ's sake means He didn't do that for our sake.
There wasn't something in us. There wasn't any good in us.
He did this for Christ's sake. Christ did everything. And He's
going to give Him His people. And He did this for Christ's
sake. He did it for His sake. That's a blessing. Last weekend,
a few weeks ago, when I was down there in Danville, I was preaching
and I was talking about how that Nehemiah, whenever Nehemiah went
down there to that city, and Nehemiah, he was the governor. Christ is our governor. The government's
on his shoulder. And I left something out that
I meant to say. I skipped right over it. I meant
to say this. But whenever Nehemiah went down there, He could have
taken a full measure of gold or silver, bread, whatever it
is. It's called the governor's bread. It was due him. It was
lawfully his as the governor to support him and his servants
and everybody in his camp. But when Nehemiah went down there,
he didn't do that. He didn't take that. He said,
no, I won't take it. Because he wouldn't put the burden
on his brethren. He wanted his brethren to be able to give themselves
to the work of the Lord and help spread It was a picture spreading
the gospel. And he wouldn't put that burden
on them. Well, think about Christ. Think about what he's done. Now,
God's brought us there. He brought us. He's shown us
Christ. He's shown us what Christ has done for us. A to Z, Christ
did it all. Shed his own blood. Now, Christ
hadn't exacted of us. What would he do if he exacted
of us if being the governor? We can't pay what we owe him. That's precious blood. No way
we could do that. And we could never do that. But
you know what he's done? He's brought us to his feet.
He's brought us to see what he's done for us. And this is what
he says to us. If you love me, feed my sheep. If you love me,
be kind one to another, be tenderhearted and forgive one another. Isn't
that a light yoke? Isn't that a light and easy yoke?
I mean, when you look at what he did for us and that's what
he says to us. No, no, you don't have to. You
don't have to. There's no way, child, that you
can give me anything that matches what I've done for you. Here's
what you can do, though, and this is what I've done for you.
Be kind to one another, tender hearted, and forgive one another.
Oh, just think about all the 600 and something laws that are
in the law. Think about trying to keep those.
Think about trying to just, I mean, we can't keep all the balls in
the air that we're trying to juggle. You think if you had
600 and something laws that you had to obey. And you having to
go in the morning and offer sacrifice and in the evening and offer
sacrifice and make sure that you got a fine flour mingled
with it and just everything just right and all of that. That was
a burden, a yoke, a heavy burden upon. That's what the law is
on us, brethren. Christ took that off. He took
it out of the way. Paul said he nailed it to his
cross, he said. And now he comes to us and says,
now, child, you can serve me. And this is how you do it. Love
one another. That's good. That's good. Love
one another. Oh, man, that is. Even as God, for Christ's sake,
has forgiven you. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted
and forgiven one another. You remember whenever You remember
whenever David, when the Lord made him to be the king, his
enemies were after him. And Jonathan helped him. And
years later, after all that was over, let's look at this. Look at 2 Samuel 9. I want you
to see this. 2 Samuel 9. Look at verse 1. David said, Is there yet any
left of the house of Saul that I might show him kindness for
Jonathan's sake? That's what the gospel is. That's God sending forth His
preacher. And God said, Is there anybody left in my enemy's house
that I might show him favor? for Christ's sake. Look at this
now. And they said it was reported
to David in verse 3. At the end there, they said,
Jonathan hath yet a son which is lame on his feet. Now, I'll
tell you what, if you're one and he's calling, that's how
you're going to be. You're going to be lame on your
feet. Lame on your feet. And David said, Go fetch him.
Go get him. And they went down there and
they got that boy. And look at verse 7. And David said unto
him, when he brought him, this is what he said, Fear not. Fear
not. For I will surely show thee kindness
for Jonathan's sake. What did he say he was going
to show him? I'm going to show you kindness. What's God shown
us? He showed it to us when we didn't
even know he was showing it to us. He's shown it to us since
we've known him. Kindness. For Christ's sake,
that's what he's done. He said, not only that, I'm going
to restore thee all the land of Saul, thy father, and you're
going to eat at my table continually. That's what we've been doing.
That's what we're going to do. Eat at his table continually.
At his table continually. And he says in verse 8, look
at this. Mephibosheth, this is what he
said. He bowed himself and he said, what is thy servant that
thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am? If we got that heart, brethren,
if God's given us that heart, you know what we're going to
do? We might stumble because sin's in us. And you let your
flesh get the best of you. But I tell you where we're going
to be brought. We're going to be brought to show kindness and
tenderhearted. and forgiveness. Because we say
we were just dead dogs. Just dead dogs. And He's done
all this for Christ's sake. Oh, brethren, I pray that God
will give you a heart and give me a heart to serve Him and to
see that this Gospel goes out and continues to be going out.
And as we do it, as we stand before this world, that they'd
look at us and say, There's something different about those folks.
They're not like the rest of religion. Something different
about them. When they're kind to one another,
it's not a fake put on. It's real. When they forgive
one another, it's real. They got tender hearts. I pray
God give us tender hearts. Don't you? Thank you so much,
brethren. I pray it's been a blessing to
you.