I hope that God will get your attention this morning,
all of you who are here and all who are watching, because the
subject that I have been led to, receiving Christ, is the
most important thing. It should be the most important
thing in your life. I'm talking about faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ. There are hundreds and hundreds
of verses of scripture that emphasize the necessity of faith. I'm not going to try to describe
faith very much, because you see, faith is embracing, leaning
on, looking to one that you can't see with these eyes. but it's very much seeing the
glory of Christ Jesus, the necessity of Him coming down here and offering
Himself a sacrifice unto God's justice in order to save sinners. And by His bloody death, He saved
His people from their sins. I know that. But the only way
you can know that your sins are forgiven that you're accepted
in Jesus Christ, that you're one of God's children, the only
way you can know is by receiving Christ. This matter of believing on the
Lord Jesus is absolutely vital. You see, when you die, when I
die, When we leave this body, our souls go back to God. The
only thing that will matter when we meet God is our relationship
to Jesus Christ. That's all that matters. It won't
matter which side of the tracks you grew up on. It won't matter
your financial standing during life. It won't matter what your
social being was like through life. All that will matter when
you face God, and you will face God, and you know that, don't
you? You know that. All of you who are watching,
you're very much aware of this. All that will matter is this. Did you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ in your heart? And if you did, all is well. You see, we don't want to complicate
faith. The Bible says believe, not work. Believe, not weep. Believe, not walk an aisle. Believe,
not stay in the conviction for months and months and months.
It says believe. It says here in verse number
12, but as many as receive Him, welcome Him, lean on Him, take hold of Him. That's what faith is. Faith is
empty handed. Faith just comes to the Lord
and says, Lord, I got nothing to present to you. I got no good
works. I'm not going to present my prayers
to you. I'm not going to present my Bible
readings to you. I'm not going to present to you
my faithful attendance in Sunday school or in church. I'm not
going to present to you my church membership. Lord, I'm nothing
and Christ is everything. I need him. I receive him. I
believe him. That's what faith is. Don't make
it more complicated than that. Said, Jim, but you know, it is
a gift of God. Well, I know it's a gift of God. There's no question about that.
But I'll tell you this, and the spirit of God doesn't believe
for you. He has to gift you with faith, but he doesn't believe
for you. You're gonna have to believe for yourself and your
mom and your daddy can't believe for you. And I'm talking to the young
and to the old. How is it with you and God? Is there a suitable, qualified
mediator between you and God that has laid hold on you and
you've laid hold on Him? Are you trusting Him completely?
I'll tell you, sink or swim, I depend on Him. Don't you? I do. If I died right now, I've
made my appearance at the throne of justice. Say, Lord, receive
me. Receive me. For Christ's sake. Huh? Receive me for the blood's
sake, the blood of your Son. Receive me upon the basis of
the sacrifice of your darling one that you sent into the world.
He's my only hope, Father. And I have every confidence that
if He is all my plea when I face God, why, the gates of heaven
gonna fly open. Faith. Don't minimize that. He speaks about faith in these
verses, but he also speaks about a preacher. A preacher who came
preaching, that one who is the light, a light. And the preacher was John the
Baptist. And his mission is set forth
here in verse 7. The same came for a witness to
bear witness of the light. He came to bear witness of Christ. Every true gospel preacher exists
to bear witness of the light. Not to bear witness of the church.
not to bear witness of the denomination, not to bear witness of himself. John didn't bear witness of himself. They asked him, they said, who
are you? Look a little further into this chapter. They said,
who are you? Verse 19. This is the record. This is the
witness of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from
Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? Who are you? And he confessed and denied not. He said, Well, I can tell you
this, I'm not the Christ. I'm not the Messiah. I'm not
the Son of God. I'm not the Savior. And they
asked him, What then? Are you Elijah? He said, I'm
not. They said, are you that prophet
that Moses wrote about in Deuteronomy 15? He said, no. They said, well, who are you
that we may give an answer to them that sent us? What sayest
thou of thyself? Who are you? Now, if that had
been us, we might have said, and he could have said accurately,
well, I'm the subject of Old Testament prophecy. That's who
I am. I was written about in the book
of Isaiah, especially chapter 40. That's who I am. But he didn't
say that because he wasn't a setter forth of himself. He says in verse 23, He said,
I'm a voice. I'm the voice. That's all I am.
I'm the voice. Who is the preacher? He's the
voice. He's the signpost pointing you
to Jesus Christ and Him crucified, buried, risen again. That's all
the preacher is. He's just a voice. You don't need to know me, but you need to know my master
now. You need to know the one who
sent me, who commissioned me to preach the gospel. What is
a preacher anyway? Brother Scott Richton said this
years ago and I wrote it down. He said, who is a preacher? He's
a nobody sent to tell everybody about somebody who will save
anybody. That's a good definition of a
preacher right there. He's a nobody. Sent to tell everybody who'll
listen about somebody. Ooh, he's somebody. I'm nobody, but he's somebody
now. He's God over all, blessed forever,
and he's the man in Christ Jesus. He's the only savior of sinners. And he can save anybody. It doesn't matter how young you
are, how old you are. Doesn't matter the measure of
your guilt outwardly. You may be a good person, you
may be a bad person. Morally, I'm talking about. But
within we're all alike because we're guilty before God. All
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That's what
the Bible says. And as you are, you're not fit
for the presence of God. The only way you're fit for the
presence of God is to stand in and believe and receive the Lord
Jesus Christ. Your fitness is Him. You see,
my righteousness is seated at the right hand of God. Now, I
don't have any personal righteousness. Say, Jim, I'm probably as good
as you are. Well, now wait a minute, I'm
rotten. That means you're just a little more, you're less rotten
than I am. Less sinful than I am. There's none good, no, not one. You say, well, there's so much
Jim in the Bible that I don't understand. Do you understand
this? You're a sinful person. You understand
that? That's not too deep, is it? Well,
I don't know the scriptures like you do. Nobody said you got to
know the scriptures. The issue is the person I'm preaching,
the Lord Jesus Christ, being found in Him, being united to
Him and receiving Him as He set forth in the Word of God, believing
Him. Can you believe Him? And who is this person? Well,
John begins his gospel narrative by talking about He's the Word.
He's the Word. What is a word? We got college
people in here. A word, somebody said, define
it. It's a vehicle of thought. You can know a lot about me. I'm James Ferguson Byrd. I was
born in Martinsville, Virginia, Martinsville General Hospital.
You know that. Those are, you can look that
up in the I don't know, some book of records
in Henry County, Virginia, if you're interested. Ain't nobody
really interested. But you can know me, you can
know where I live, you can know who I'm married to, you can check
out my birth date, January 11th, 1951. I'll expect the cards in
the mail. You can know when my anniversary
is, August 2nd, 1969. See, I remember. So you can learn all of these
stats about me, but you can't know what I'm thinking unless
I put it into words. Now sometimes you don't want
to know what I'm thinking. I just suspect there are some
times that you don't want anybody to know what you're thinking
either. But see, the Lord Jesus, He is
God told out. You want to know about God? Christ
Jesus is the Word. He makes known the will of God,
the purpose of God, the way of God, the demands of God. Everything you need to know is
found in this eternal Word. He's the Word. He's the Word
who came down from heaven. He's the full alphabet of God. I mean, from A to Z, or to put
it as John does in the book of Revelation, Christ is the Alpha
and the Omega and everything in between. He's all of God in
every single way. Who can describe God? Who can
describe the Son of God? He's the Word. He's God told
out. But here's what's miraculous.
Verse 14 says, the Word was made flesh. Now, wait a minute. You mean the invisible, eternal,
omnipotent God was made flesh? You mean He tabernacled in a
body like we've got? Exactly. I mean, when he was
born a virgin in Bethlehem's manger, he had to be fed by his
mama, just like you did. His diapers had to be changed. He had to be kept warm. It wasn't
a make-believe baby, it was a real baby. but is more than just a
baby, that's the God baby, the God man. Say, Jim, I don't understand
that, we'll join the crowd. I can't understand it either.
How could the eternal God step down from his eternal eternal
throne from his majesty as the creator of all things. As it
says here in verse three, he's the one who made all things.
How could he step down from heaven? From being the invisible God
and dwell in human flesh? I don't know. But he did. And in that flesh, He remained
God. But He submitted to many of the
frailties of our flesh. He did. He's God who makes all
the food, but He got hungry. He's God who created all the
water, But he got thirsty. He's the God who made us, and
as a result of our sin, we get tired, we get weary, we have
to sleep. He's God Almighty. He neither
slumbers nor sleeps. But he had to sleep as a baby
and as a man. A storm came up one time on the
Sea of Galilee. And the disciples were all worried,
thundering and lightning and waves crashing across the bow
of the little fishing boat. And they said, where's Jesus?
Well, he's back there asleep. What? The God-man sleeping? Yes. And I'll tell you, when he got
to be 33, 34 years of age, time for him to lay down his life,
He died just like you're going to die one day. He gave up the
ghost. His soul was separated from his
body. You see, he had a real human
soul and a real human body. And as the God-man, he had to
die because he's dying for the sins of somebody else. My sins, your sins, your sins,
your sins, all the way around the room, your sins. The soul that sinneth shall die.
And Christ said, I'll die in their place. What kind of love
is that? What kind of grace is that? What kind of being is this? who has life in and of himself. Life existed in him. And yet
he said, I laid down my life for the sheep. Comprehend that
if you can. How can life die? I don't know, but I believe he
did. I sure believe he did. And I hang my soul on this one
who died for me and arose for me, who paid my debt. He's the word. He's the word
who has made flesh. Because you see, if he doesn't
die for me, then I'm going to have to die for me. And that'll
be forever. But I'm not going to die. You say, now Jim, you're really
talking out of your head now. No, I'm not going to die. Body's
going to fall asleep. I know there's got to be a parting
of the ways of my soul and my body. That is necessary. The soul goes back to God, the
body. Goes back to the dust from whence
it came. I know that's gonna happen. But
I have no fear, no fear of meeting God. Because my only hope, my
only plea is that Christ died and that he died for me. Is that
your plea? That's my hope. That's your hope,
Terry? It is, isn't it? That's your
hope, Gary? That's your hope, isn't it? Ken,
Ken over here too. I'd go around the building and
ask all of you. And most all of you say, he's
my only hope. He's my plea. And I've received
him saying, I believed him. See receiving Christ is looking
to Christ and the best The best illustration that I can think
of, and I go to this quite often, is when the Israelites were bitten
by the fire serpents. Man, they were everywhere. They
were in their tents. Women opened the jewelry box
to get some rings out or something. They're in the jewelry box. They're
everywhere. They're biting people. And people
are dying. Moses, what are we going to do?
And Moses cried out to God, and God said, make a serpent of brass
in the likeness, in the likeness of those fiery serpents that
bit you. See, Christ was made in the likeness
of sinful flesh. in the likeness of a serpent.
Put it on a pole. Lift it up. And go around, tell people, look! If you look, you'll live. That's it. Yeah, but I probably
need to wash that wound first. Now hang on a minute now. Now
you're bringing work into it, aren't you? See, that's what
man does. He brings work into it. I know
you say I receive Christ, I believe Christ, but I'm gonna clean up
my life. God won't have anything to do
with you. It's not about cleaning up your life. It's about cleaning
up your heart. That's what it's about. And only
the blood can do that. Wash me in the blood of the Lamb.
and I shall be whiter than snow. Look to the lamp of God. Somebody might have said, well,
you know, I got bit right there, but it doesn't look too bad.
And my grandma, she makes some potions, you know, and I'm gonna
take two tablespoons of that. And I'll be okay, maybe take
a couple of anisins, I'll be just fine. You go ahead, meet
you at the cemetery, except you won't know that I'm there to
preach your funeral. Well, it's not that bad. It's way worse than you can imagine. We've all been bit by the serpent
of sin, and you may, outwardly, you may be as clean as a hound's
tooth, But within, there's where the
problem is. We're all guilty. We're all ungodly. That's just a fact. That's what
the Bible says. And I pray that God will enable
you to agree with what God says about you. Faith lays hold of Christ. Faith
falls in His arms. Lord, I can't do it. I've tried. I've tried to be different. I've
tried to be a better person, but I don't have any peace in
my heart that my sins have put away, that I'm righteous before
You. I don't have any peace. Lord,
I just fall into the arms of Christ Jesus. I just look to
Him. I receive Him. I receive Him. I trust Him. You know what the
Bible says about Abraham? Remember these three words about
Abraham. Abraham believed God. And it was counted to him for
righteousness. Abraham believed God. Do you
believe God? is believing Christ. Last Lord's
Day, I baptized three people, two in the morning service and
one at night. And when I put them into the
water, they didn't help me. They trusted me to put them under
and bring them back up. They trusted me. Austin, you
trusted me. Don, you trusted me. Last Sunday
night, Rita, she trusted me. You mean you can trust a man
like me, but you can't trust Christ Jesus? Can you not fall
in his arms? He'll hold you up. He hadn't lost one yet. And he
never will. You see, faith receives him.
But now faith, let's understand this. It's not a result of your
heredity. It's not of blood. You don't
believe because your mom and dad believed. And it's not of
your will. It's of God's will. And it's
not the will of somebody else either. If you believe Christ
Jesus, if right now in your heart you say, Lord, I'm falling into
the arms of Christ. That's what faith is. That's the evidence you're born
of God. That's what it says in verse
13. Receiving Christ. That's receiving
the way it's set forth in the Bible. Jim, it's too simplistic. But that's why people miss it.
They want to do something. Like old Martin Luther, climbing
the stairs on his knees, got to do something. I've had people tell me I've
got to be smitten, I've got to be brought low. I heard a preacher
one time said, you know, before you can come to Christ, you've
got to be under conviction to such an extent you feel like
somebody hit you in the belly with a baseball bat. I said,
where in the world did that come from? Conviction is the Spirit of God
showing you, you're a sinner, you're not fit for the presence
of God, and the only one who can take you into the presence
of a holy God is the Lord Jesus Christ by His own bloody death.
And I believe that. I'm banking on that. I'm staking
my soul's eternal welfare on Him. What about you? What about you? Let's sing the
closing song.