I just met Doc the other day
at the breakfast, and I happened to ask him what his favorite
song was. That was it, Amazing Grace. I love that song. You guys did such a good job.
I can't sing that. The range is far too, way beyond
me. If you want to turn in your Bibles
to the book of Matthew, the book of Matthew in the New Testament
in chapter 15. We've had such a good time here.
I wish we could stay, but that would be selfish. We have to
go back home. But you all are so kind. It makes
me feel uncomfortable when people are so much nicer than you are.
It makes me feel small. In Matthew chapter 15, I've entitled
this message, Compassionate Repetition, something that's repeated. In
Matthew chapter 15, we're gonna read from verse 29 through verse
39. He says, and Jesus departed from
thence and came nigh unto the Sea of Galilee and went up into
a mountain and sat down there. And great multitudes came to
him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, they
couldn't speak, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at
Jesus' feet, and he healed them, insomuch that the multitude wondered
when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame
to walk and the blind to see. And they glorified the God of
Israel. Then Jesus called his disciples
to him and said, I have compassion on the multitude because they
continue with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And
I will not send them away fasting lest they faint in the way. And
his disciples said to him, Whence should we have so much bread
in the wilderness as to fill so great a multitude? And Jesus
said to them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven,
and a few little fishes. And he commanded the multitude
to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves
and the fishes and gave thanks and break them and gave to his
disciples and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all
eat and were filled. And they took up the broken meat
that was left seven baskets full. And they that did eat were 4,000
men beside women and children. And he sent away the multitude
and took ship and came into the coast of Magdala." That's a familiar
story, isn't it? Look back at chapter 14. In verse 15 of, this came earlier,
same thing happened. Verse 15, when it was evening,
his disciples came to him saying, this is a desert place and the
time has now passed. Send the multitude away that
they may go into the villages and buy themselves vittles. But
Jesus said to them, They need not depart, give ye them to eat. And they say to him, we have
here but five loaves and two fishes. And he said, bring them
hither to me. bring them hither to me. And
he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass and he
took the five loaves and the two fishes. Looking up to heaven,
he blessed and break and gave the loaves to his disciples and
the disciples to the multitude and they did all eat and were
filled and they took up the fragments that remained, 12 baskets full. There we go, that's the same
miracle, almost exactly the same. That's why I've entitled this
text of the sermon today, Compassionate Repetition. Now the gospels give
the account of all that Jesus said and did. Not everything,
not everything said Jesus said and did is recorded, but what
God inspired these men, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to report
was for a specific purpose. And that purpose is stated in
John chapter 20 in verse 31. These things were written that
you might believe. That Jesus is the Christ, the
son of God, and that believing you might have life through his
name. And so God's purpose in Matthew 15, verse 29 through
39, therefore, is that we might believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that it? This is part of
that. I want to believe him. I do. And I want you to believe him.
And this is my prayer today that I and you would hear and believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ today. The scripture that we just read
shows us that Jesus left one place to come to another. A great
number of people came to him there. Many suffered serious
limitations. They were blind and lame, deaf
and mute, even mutilated. And the word maimed in the scripture
here means they had parts of their body that were missing
one way or the other. Because he spoke of this, if
your hand or your eye offends you, cut it off and pluck it
out. It's the same word here. It's better to enter heaven maimed
than to, I mean, yeah, better to enter heaven maimed than to
enter into everlasting fire as a whole body. So that's what
the word maimed here means, mutilated. And so as not to leave many out
or any of these people out, in verse 30 of Matthew 15, he says,
and many others. No one's left out here. The blind,
the lame, the deaf, the mute, even the mutilated and many others.
And what does that mean? That little phrase, many others,
means no needy sinner is excluded. None. Whatever your condition,
come to Christ. Believe Him. Jesus healed them
all. He did the same throughout the
New Testament. This multitude stayed with the Lord Jesus three
days to hear Him. Three days, that was a long conference.
After three days, he looked upon them with compassion. He would
not send them away hungry, so he made food for them to eat.
The son of God walked among men and having compassion on them,
he made this food. It was a wilderness place, it
was not comfortable. There were no provisions there
that you find in the city. And these people were weak and
poor, unlearned and outcast. And you know what it says in
1 Corinthians 1, you see your calling, brethren, how that not
many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble
are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world
to confound the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of
the world to confound the things that are mighty and base things
of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen
Yea, things which are not to bring to nothing things that
are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. What a word,
what a word. But of him are you in Christ
Jesus. That's the message. Who of God
is made into us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,
that according as it is written, he that glories, let him glory
in the Lord. So the weak, and the poor, and
the unlearned, and the outcast are exactly the kind of people
the Lord saves. He passes by the strong, but
He saves the weak. He passes by the wise, and He
teaches the ignorant. He leaves pretenders in their
unbelief, but He saves great sinners from theirs. The healthy
do not need a physician, but the sick know that they do. The
whole do not need a miracle, but the maimed and the dismembered
need new eyes and new ears, new limbs. What is this teaching
us? That Jesus Christ came into the
world, the son of God. He took our nature, the son of
man to save sinners. Never lose sight of that all
important and ever comforting truth. There is never a time
that we do not need the comfort of this truth. We never grow
beyond it. Physical sickness, and you know this, it makes us
feel acutely that we have a need, but physical sickness is just
a reflection of our true need, the condition and the healing
of our souls. Isn't it? The Lord tells us,
remember the pit from whence you were digged, and it was a
deep and a foul pit, wasn't it? In Titus chapter three, it describes
our deplorable condition. And it describes Christ's glory
in our salvation because of our deplorable condition. He says,
we were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts
and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating
one another. We were hateful and hating one another. But after
that, the kindness and love of God, our savior toward man appeared. That's compassion, isn't it?
not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according
to his mercy, he saved us. By the washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ, our Savior, that being justified by his grace,
we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
We were justified by his blood, By God's uninfluenced grace,
we don't influence God, we do not influence God. Where were
you when he decided to make the worlds? Where were the angels
when he decided to slay his son for sinners? We were justified
by his blood, therefore we are made heirs by the regenerating
operation of the Spirit of God, giving us life, and by that life,
faith in Christ and him crucified. Jesus died for sinners. God justifies
the ungodly. What point would there be for
Christ to die to save righteous folks? That would be redundancy,
wouldn't it? That would be unnecessary. What
glory would God show by declaring the righteous to be just? God
is infinitely good and sin is therefore infinitely bad. Nothing
less than the death of the son of God in our nature can save
sinners from their sin. And yet in this, we see God,
don't we? Who decided this? Whose will
was it that his son should die? And whose work was it when the
Lord Jesus Christ shed his blood? Was it not the work of God? Jesus
said, I do the works of him that sent me, the works of my father. How do we know him? By the work
that he did, how he stood for us. This is God, pure God in all
of his holiness, revealing himself and what he did for sinners.
His own righteousness is seen in his grace. That's what the
scripture says. Now the righteousness of God
is manifested through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus by which
he justifies us. He found in his wisdom a way
to abundantly shed his grace on the most deserving of his
wrath. And who does God justify? The
ungodly. The sinless son of God was punished
and the guilty rebel was set free. Christ came for a specific
purpose to a specific people. The son of man, he says, has
come to save. That's the purpose, that which
was lost. Those are the people, the lost.
The slave has sinned, but the son has suffered. The shepherd
for the sheep is slaughtered. The Lord of the world became
the servant in the world. The law giver was made under
the law and made obedience his law of life. The one who alone
it's right it is to rule made obedience his rule of life. As
the Lord Jesus Christ, the judge took the place of the condemned.
The prince of life gave his life for those whose sins crucified
him. He bore reproach from us that
he might save us from our own reproach. The offended and holy
God in mercy and righteousness reconciled his people to himself
by the blood of his own Son. He came to this place in Matthew
15. He came at this time and he came
to these people to heal sin six sinners. This was God's purpose
for Christ's coming to save his people from their sins. And this
was God's covenant. This is my covenant unto them,
he says in Romans 11, when I shall take away their sins. What a
simple way of condensing the entire purpose of God's covenant,
that everlasting covenant, which was made in the blood of his
son. Sinners could not be more surprised
by it. Remember when Mary Magdalene
saw Jesus when he had raised from the dead and he was there
at the tomb? Remember what she said? She did
not recognize him. Why did she not recognize the
Lord Jesus? Didn't she know him? Did he look
different? No, but he looked different than
she expected. She thought he was dead, but
there he was, completely unexpected, a total surprise. And so when
sinners are saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, it comes to us
as the greatest surprise. We didn't expect it. There was
never an example of this ever in the world. It never entered
into the heart of man. It was never conceived of, this
was never imagined. It was never an example of it.
It says in Isaiah 52, as many were astonished at thee, that
his visage was so marred, more than any man, and his form more
than the sons of men, so shall he sprinkle many nations. The
kings shall shut their mouths at him. For that which had not
been told them, shall they see. They had to be told. It hadn't
entered their minds. And that which they had not heard,
they shall consider. And sinners couldn't be happier
about it. These people were happy. They
were happy. They were there three days. There
is no better news in all the world to one who is ungodly than
this, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
to one who has sinned against clear light, who has sinned repeatedly,
who has found that he cannot not sin, who sees in him some
small way that he is a sinner in the very core of his nature.
In some small way, we see that, don't we? That in the very core
of who we are, all we are is sin. That one who is unable to perform
one function of spiritual life, there is no better news than
that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. To that
one, he can't lift his hand. To one who has no obedience that
God can accept, there is no better news than that God accepts the
obedience of Christ as his own and all sufficient righteousness.
Christ healed all of these folks. He healed every kind of deformity,
every disease, every plague of the body and mind, and he cast
out every devil. And this is because he saves
every kind of sinner. Even the worst who come to him
as sinners with nothing but his word that tells that he himself
is willing and able and it pleases him. It is his joy fulfilled
in saving sinners. Even the sinfulness, he saves
them to the uttermost by his grace alone. There will be no
disappointments in heaven. There won't be any looking back
across the history of the ages and God will not see one thing
in which he was disappointed. Not for his people, not one thing. There won't be any regrets. He
will wipe away all tears from our eyes because everything will
be done and we will stand before him in Christ, absolutely perfect,
rewarded with his own inheritance. Now trouble, according to verse
30 of our text, these people and their condition, trouble
drives us to Christ. God brings affliction in our
body to heighten the disease of our soul. You get a cold,
you get the flu, you get sick, you're in the hospital or whatever
it is, physical sickness humbles us, doesn't it? We need to be
humbled. Before I was afflicted, the psalmist says, I went astray,
but now have I kept thy word. I've believed on Christ. There
is no greater area in which we need to be brought low than in
our own opinion of ourselves before God. We have high thoughts
of ourselves because we have low thoughts of God. There was
a song that I learned when I was a teenager. I had some thoughts
of God before I met him. He even seemed to look a lot
like me. But then I saw the cross of my savior and I knew that
I was blind as I could be. When Isaiah saw the Lord Jesus
Christ as the Lord on his throne, he said, woe is me. I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips. And
when by faith we see Christ as God and man, our only Redeemer,
our thoughts of God will be made high and our thoughts of ourselves
will be brought to nothing. God's word applied to our conscience
must bring us down. Hannah, in 1 Samuel 2, she prayed
this in her song. She said, he lifts up the beggar. Having nothing, that's what a
beggar is. They can't provide for themselves. They have to
live on handouts. He lifts up the beggar from the
dunghill to sit him among princes and to inherit the throne of
glory. God's word applied to our conscience
must bring us down. Only then will we come to Christ.
Thank God, thank God for trouble. especially soul trouble, thank
God for the stress that God makes us feel by our sin and that guilt
and corruption and shame and helplessness that drives us to
Christ to lose all confidence in ourselves and find our confidence
in him only. Anything that makes God's grace
and Christ and his salvation necessary to us, anything that
does that is mercy from God, isn't it? When we see our condition
and when we understand that Christ is the only Savior of such as
we are, then you know what we'll do as beggars? We will borrow
words. We will borrow words as a beggar
that I must borrow from God the very words I need to come to
him. We'll borrow those words from
God's word, those who prayed in their trouble and were delivered.
Here's the thing, the shortest prayers of sinners are the best
prayers for sinners to pray. The woman in Matthew 15, just
before this, she said, Lord, help me. Isn't that a nice prayer? Peter, about to drown on the
sea, Lord, save me. And the thief on the cross, Lord,
remember me when you come into your kingdom. The publican said,
God, have mercy on me, the sinner. And in Psalm 25, the psalmist
says, for thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it
is great. for thy namesake. Do it for your
namesake. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. Don't you want that? Above everything
in this world, don't you want God to speak to your soul and
say, I am your salvation? And that's what he says in the
gospel. Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously, he
says in Hosea. These are short prayers, and
these are the best prayers for sinners to pray. That's what
the Lord does. Borrow words, whatever you have
to do to get to Christ. In Psalm 119, he says, let thy
mercies come also unto me, O Lord, also to me. even thy salvation
according to thy word. In Psalm 65, three, iniquities
prevail against me. They have the mastery over me.
As for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away. He looks
at all of his sins and he looks to the cross. Every such prayer that God has
given us in his word is intended for us to take. as our own, isn't
it? I take liberty as a sinner with
the prayers that sinners pray. The spirit of God himself has
given us warrant that Christ can save even me, hasn't he? In all these cases, where do
you not find yourself here? Notice here, great multitudes
came to Jesus. The call of the gospel is what?
Come to Christ. The Spirit and the bride say,
come. The Holy Spirit of God and the
Church of Christ have one message for sinners. Look to Christ.
Believe Him. Don't look to your faith. Come
to Christ. Behold Him. In this account,
Multitudes came to Jesus and they brought people with incurable
conditions. Some couldn't see, some couldn't
hear, some couldn't walk, some couldn't talk. They weren't able
to put their needs into words. They couldn't talk. Some were
mangled, missing parts, having your hand cut off or maimed.
They were all burdened by their condition. They were unable to
do what other people could do, right? They were abnormal in
their condition. Sinners cannot do one thing that
God requires. That's the definition of a sinner.
All of this is therefore a call, all of the scripture is a call
for sinners to come to Christ, isn't it? What does it mean to
come to Christ? It seems mysterious, doesn't
it? How can I get to him? He is in heaven, I'm on earth.
He is holy, I'm sinful. He is the light of the world,
I'm blind and ignorant. Thomas said, Lord, how can we
know the way? Jesus said, I am the way. I am
the bread of life. He that comes to me shall never
hunger. He that believes on me shall
never thirst. So the coming and believing are
synonymous. They're the same. Did you catch
that? Coming and believing on Christ are exactly the same thing.
When you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you come to him.
If you believe him, you have come to him. But the word here
is believeth with an E-T-H. And that's the way of indicating
that you don't come once. You are coming now. If you ever
come to Christ, you keep coming. If you ever believe Him, you
keep believing. If you have come, you keep coming. If you believe, you're believing
him now. Peter said in 1 Peter 2, to whom
coming. We come to a person who is God
and who is man. And our coming is not a one-time
act, but a continual looking away from ourselves and calling
on the Lord Jesus Christ for everything in our salvation. Jesus said, come unto me, all
ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. The
promise of the Son of God to a sinner. That's condescension, isn't it?
That is grace. Are you burdened by your sin?
Do you want nothing more than to know that all your sins have
been forgiven by God? Come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe on him. Is your sin great? Do you fear that your sin is
so great God will not forgive you? Psalm 130 says, oh Lord,
if you would mark iniquities, who could stand? But there is
forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. Do you wonder
if you've sinned so greatly and so repeatedly that you have sinned
away grace? Jesus said, come unto me all
you who labor. You're burdened by that, aren't
you? Heavy laden. Do you find no strength against
sin? Believe on Him. Come to Christ. Do you lack evidence
that you are a Christian? Come to Jesus. Come to Him. Believe
Him. If you found in yourself what
you think you would need to have peace and assurance, if you found
that in yourself, if you found a reason in yourself for that
assurance and joy before God, what would it be? What would
it look like? I can tell you this, if you discover
it in yourself, you have found a lie. You have not come to Christ. You remain blinded by your spiritual
pride if you find anything in yourself or confidence. Christ
has obtained eternal redemption and he has worked out an everlasting
righteousness outside of your personal history and mine. The
only basis for our acceptance and coming to God is entirely
outside of ourselves. God offered up his son. We come
to Christ only because of what we find in him by his word. And you will only find peace
and joy and comfort and rest when you are fully persuaded
that Christ is all and that there is nothing about you for confidence. Let me read a couple of scriptures
to you from Isaiah first of all. Look at Isaiah chapter 32. Sometimes we make these statements
and you want as a sinner, okay, I want to believe that the news
sounds too good to be true. Can you show me in scripture
in Isaiah chapter 32 and verse 17, it says, the work of righteousness
shall be peace. Well, we know that this is not
the righteousness of a man because there is no man who is righteous.
So this has to be the righteousness of God in Christ. because his is the only righteousness
that there is. So the work of righteousness
shall be peace. Now, what part did you contribute
to that righteousness? None, but notice, and the effect
of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever. The effect
of believing Christ and his righteousness is what? Quietness and assurance
forever. Let me show you another scripture.
Look at Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. The book
of Hebrews is all about what Christ did to fulfill all of
the Old Testament scripture. In Hebrews chapter 10, he says
this, in verse 14, for by one offering, he hath perfected forever
them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is
a witness to us, for after that he had said before, this is the
covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith
the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts and in their
minds, will I write them? Notice, and their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. Why? Verse 18, now where remission
of these is, there's no more offering for sin. He remembers
them no more because they are no more. And therefore there
is no more offering for sin because there's no more need to offer.
The sins are gone. So he says, notice verse 19,
Hebrews 10, 19. Here you are, poor, trembling,
doubting sinner. Having therefore, brethren, boldness
to enter into the holiest. Where's that? That's in the presence
of God. In all of his glory, he does
not allow anyone to come who is a sinful person. Notice, we
have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. If you go to the Grand Canyon,
they have a bridge that goes across. Would you be so foolish
as to try to cross without the bridge? But when you see that
bridge, you realize that's the way across. Here, God is saying
the way into God's presence, the presence of God in all of
his glory is what? The blood of Jesus. If we don't come boldly, what
does it mean? It means either that we don't give a hoot about
the blood of Jesus, or we think that something else is needed
because we're so doubtful. Did the Lord Jesus Christ make
the way or not? If he did, then come by his blood.
If he didn't, then you are calling God a liar. Do you need spiritual life? Come
to Christ. Do you lack words to pray? Come
to the Lord Jesus Christ and believe on Him. Believe His words,
not yours. Believe His prayers. Are you
unable to repent? Come to Christ. Believe on Him.
Do you long to know that you're accepted by God? Come to Christ. Do you need faith to believe?
Come to Christ. Look to Him. He is the author
and finisher of faith and you will only find salvation in Him. Our problem is not that we do
too little. Our problem is that we take something
about ourselves as the basis of our confidence and our peace
and our assurance. Isn't it? We're always thinking
about something we can do or something we're going to do someday. We make resolve and we try to
keep it. We try to do too much. We think that being a good Christian
is doing good things for God. It is not. Being a good Christian
is seen by faith that I am the object of saving grace. Isn't
it? Being a Christian is knowing
Christ is all of my salvation. It is calling on him to save
me. It is worshiping him for saving
me by himself then when he died on the cross and making me know
it now that he is all of my salvation. Let me read this scripture to
you in Isaiah chapter 12. Because I want to encourage you.
If we are what these people were, lame, maimed, deaf, dumb, blind,
and many others, these words are important to us. Isaiah 12,
and in that day thou shalt say, oh Lord, I will praise thee. And so every believer does. Though
thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away. Who turned
it away? He himself. Thou comfortest me. Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid,
for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song. He also has become
my salvation." And so we worship him. In Numbers chapter 21, the
children of Israel murmured and complained against God and Moses,
and God sent fiery serpents to bite them, and there was no cure.
Many of them were bitten, and many had died, and some were
dying. All who were bitten were dying,
so they cried to Moses. And God told Moses to make a
serpent of brass and fasten it on a pole, beat it out of brass,
heat up the metal and hammer it out and fasten it to a pole. And he told the people, look
at that serpent on the pole. And all who looked lived. The
serpent on the pole, according to Jesus, is himself under the
curse of God for sinners. God tells us that all under the
guilt and judgment and condemnation of their sins and the curse of
his law, he tells them all, look to Christ, look to Christ. That's the evidence of being
born again. John chapter three, don't try to cover up the bite
of your spiritual death. It came by your sins against
God. Don't put a tourniquet on it and stop the spread of poison
and sin by trying to stop the problem of sin in yourself. Don't
seek a conversion experience. Don't seek a religious experience.
Don't redouble your efforts or your consecration or your dedication. Don't do good deeds as a pill
to relieve your pain. And don't try to get up and don't
try to walk. Don't raise your hand. Your tears
and your sorrow will not move God to help you. The deadly poison
of that bite courses through your veins and your mind is darkened
and it is in your heart and it is in your brain. Now, as someone
paralyzed by sin, look to Christ and see what he has done. If you cannot see with your eyes,
then believe his word and believe him only. The only obedience
that God accepts is Christ's obedience in His blood in fulfillment
of His everlasting covenant. Think about that. If God had
an eternal will, and He gave His Son to fulfill that will,
and that covenant was fulfilled in His blood, then what wasn't
done when He shed His blood on the cross? What wasn't done? I'm still searching. Everything,
justification, and remission, and forgiveness of sins, and
propitiation, and redemption, and reconciliation, and sanctification. Everything was done when Christ
shed his blood. The God of glory stepped out
of glory, laid aside his reputation, took our nature, bore our sins,
confessed them over his own head, owned them before God, and then
suffered what we deserve for that. He took the sins of his
enemies, those who spoke reproachfully against him and despitefully
used him, and he loved them by laying his life down. The Son
of God gave himself. He emptied heaven in order to
fulfill the will of God. What is God's heart then? It's
grace to sinners, that's his glory at the cost to himself,
the full cost. He obligated himself to do all
for himself on the behalf of sinners, and that's his glory.
When we see that humility, that selflessness, the sacrifice,
we know God in seeing Christ, don't we? The only repayment
to God's justice is Christ's blood. The only freedom from
sin and death is the eternal redemption that He obtained when
He offered His blood. The only dress in which God will
accept you is Christ and Him crucified. The only thing you
can present to God is to Take what he has provided and performed
and pronounces in his gospel, his testimony of what his son
has done. Don't try to clean up. His blood
alone cleanses us from all sin. All of us are bitten. Among men
there is no remedy. All must look to Christ crucified
alone, and only those who look are healed. We only live in believing
Christ. Come to Christ. Don't minimize
your sin. Don't minimize the spiritual
death bite in your soul that your sin has brought. Recognize
that your case is fatal. Don't resolve, I'll never do
it again. And don't think you can undo
that bite. Don't think you can recover your
fall. Don't think you can do what is
against your sinful nature. You got yourself into the pit.
You cannot get out. You can't lift yourself up. Christ
crucified, risen, exalted, reigning, and interceding for sinners is
the only remedy. Therefore, believe on him and
look upon him who is the remedy. Maybe you wonder, has God elected
me? Maybe you wonder, did Christ
die for me? Maybe you wonder if God will
grant you repentance and faith and give you life. Like the woman
in Matthew 15 before this, take all of your concerns to Christ
and believe him. The spirit and the bride say,
come. And Christ himself says, coming
to me, he that comes to me, I will in no wise cast out. If you look
to Christ, you're not asking him to do more than he promised,
or more than he's able to do. He counted it his joy, for the
joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising
the shame. By nature, we will not come.
But if you come to Christ, believing he is your only answer to God
for your sins and judgment, if you come to Christ, believing
that the only obedience God can accept from you is what he already
accepted from his son, then you will not be cast out. God only
justifies us for what he finds in his son. It is not in you. God only justifies the obedience
of his son, his obedience unto death. Therefore, believe Christ
only. He is the end of the law for
righteousness to everyone that believe it. Do not put conditions
on his salvation. Christ met the conditions. You
must look away from yourself and your sins and your sinful
nature, your helplessness to change and you must look to Christ.
But you say, I fear, I cannot believe that I cannot come and
that I cannot look. Don't you think that? Jesus commanded
the man with a withered hand, stretch out your hand. He commanded
Lazarus when he was dead, Lazarus, come forth. The man's hand was
withered. Lazarus was dead. He couldn't
rise up. The man couldn't stretch out
his hand. Yet with Christ's command. And what is that? The gospel. That's his command. The gospel
is given for the obedience of faith. With the command comes
the grace to obey. Look for it. from his word. God be thanked that you were
the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that
form of doctrine which was delivered you. It was done that way so
that no flesh could glory in his presence. When you hear that your only
standing before God is what God has done in Christ and that you
are to believe him for everything in your salvation, if you hear
that and you venture on him, Believing he has finished all
for sinners. It's because God has given you
faith by his grace. Don't bring your faith. Come
to Christ for faith. Don't bring your sorrow. Look
to him. He's the man of sorrows who took
your sorrows. Come to Christ for everything,
for salvation from your sins. Come to him for the justifying
righteousness you need to appear before God. Come to him for repentance
and faith and for a new heart. Believe him for the eyes to see
him and call on him for the ears to hear. Look to him for a mouth
to speak the truth of his salvation and come to him for feet to walk.
and hands to handle him by faith. God raises this question and
he answers this question. What must I do to be saved? Of
course, in our minds, we think do, do, do. What does he say? You believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and thou shalt be saved. The just shall live by faith. How should I walk? We walk by
faith. How do I live my life? I live
by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself
for me. How can I love God? We love him because he first
loved us. Don't we? Everything is in Christ. Jesus
said, you will not come to me that you might have life. So
we come to him for life. We come to him for life. We come
to Christ for life, for spiritual life, for eternal life. And he
said, all who come live. If you come, you already have
life, eternal life. He says this, he that heareth
my word and believeth on him that sent me has everlasting
life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed already
from death to life. If you come to Christ, you rest. You cease from your own labors.
What is rest? What is that rest? It is ceasing
from our works and it is resting in Christ's finished work. That work of salvation. We don't
come to Christ just once. If we believe, we keep coming.
If you've received Christ the Lord, we walk in him. In the
same way, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk
ye in him. We don't think back, when did
I believe? That's not the question. Are
you believing? And then you're gonna come up
empty, aren't you? You're gonna say, Lord, I believe,
help my unbelief. Lord, increase my faith. I don't
know if I have any faith. Lord, give me that grace. We
must never try to go beyond Christ alone. Pastor Donnie read last
night, he said in 2 John, whosoever transgresses, that means to go
beyond and abides not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not
God. Christ is our life, Colossians
3, 4. And he is our all, Colossians
3, verse 11. And the fullness of the Godhead
dwells in him, and we are complete in him. That's scripture, isn't
it? God has made him all things to
us, wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption.
Every time I hear someone say, you need this, you need that,
What is our response? I'm gonna have to find it in
the Lord Jesus Christ, because it's not in me. Oh, soul of mine, look to Christ. Don't you pray that? May God
give you and me the grace to do so even now. Now, in this
text of scripture, we see a repetition of Christ's compassion. In these
verses, Jesus performed a miracle that is nearly the same thing
that he did in chapter 14. Why did Jesus repeat this miracle?
Why does he repeat several of his miracles? Why? Why is there
this repetition? First of all, because he saved
multitudes, we see that he can save multitudes more. You've heard of the story of
the little boy in the room full of manure. He saved others, he
can save me. If you were in this crowd, if
you were hungry, as these were, would you have thought this miracle
unnecessary because Jesus had done it before? No. I'm hungry now. Jesus Christ
never grows tired of sinners crying to him for all grace out
of their helplessness. He never grows tired. Therefore,
I will call upon him as long as I live, the psalmist said.
Remember Psalm 116? And the second reason Jesus repeats
these miracles is because what he did in one place, he did in
many places. What he did for one, he does
for many. He obtained our salvation once,
but he gives that salvation in life and faith over and over
again. He often repeats his miracles.
It's a good thing that he does. Aren't you glad? that the Lord
Jesus Christ repeated the miracle of salvation to you. He saved
in Galilee, he can save here. He saved multitudes, he can save
multitudes more. He saved thousands, he can save
me. Don't you come to God that way?
Lord, save me. That's our first interest, isn't
it? Lord, save me. He made the gospel real in my
heart before, I need him to make it real again today. Day by day. The third reason the Lord repeats
his miracles is because we need to hear the gospel again and
again, don't we? Tell me the old, old story, slowly,
that I may take it in. That wonderful redemption, God's
remedy for sin. Tell me the story often, for
I forget so soon. The early dew of morning has
passed away at noon. Paul said in Philippians 3, to
write the same things to you, to me, indeed, is not grievous,
but for you it is safe. We who believe will spend the
endless cycles of eternity worshiping our great God and Savior, the
Lord Jesus Christ, for who he is and for saving us from our
sins, and we will not get tired of doing it, will we? The fourth
reason. The Lord repeats his miracles
is that we are continuously needy. These were hungry like those
who came before and we never outgrow or go beyond our need
for mercy and grace. We only grow in grace, don't
we? We grow in our need, and we grow
to see more and more that we must and shall be saved by the
grace of God alone. It's going to be grace from first
to last. Because if it is of grace, then
it is no more of works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace. We grow in faith. that faith
of persuasion that Christ is everything in our salvation,
our complete payment for sin, everything in our obedience,
everything in our coming to God, heaven will be a welfare state. Even in eternity, we're gonna
be utterly dependent on Christ and his grace. Throughout eternity,
we will be unable to earn one blessing from God. O to grace,
how great a debtor daily I am constrained to be. From our inmost
being we will forever confess I am what I am by the grace of
God. How many times in a day do you
need fresh mercy from Christ when you fall into familiar sins
of imagination, or motive, or word, or deed, and when you commit
the same sin against the same light or new light for the thousandth
time? Do you not with each fall, each
time you fall, find a continuously growing need for mercy and cleansing
from Christ, don't you? Notice that the Holy Spirit of
God gives the Church of Christ this prayer to pray. What prayer is this? Psalm 80,
turn us again. This is the words of believers. Turn us again, O God of our salvation. Cause thy face to shine and we
shall be saved again. Turn me again. This is our repeated
cry. It's not like I was a sinner,
I turned from my sins and now I'm fine, no. I constantly need
to be turned from this attitude of unbelief to faith in Christ.
This is our repeated cry. When we are given grace to rely
on the Lord Jesus Christ, we realize afresh that we have nothing
but what we have in Him. No tears can satisfy God or persuade
Him to forgive me. My sorrow is a sorrow that needs
to be repented of. Only the blood of Christ cleanses
us from all sin. So we go again, and again, and
again, and we never stop going. Where else would we go? Christ
has the words of eternal life. We don't leave because there's
nowhere else for us to go. The psalmist cries this in Psalm
86 verse three. Listen, be merciful unto me,
O Lord, for I cry unto thee daily. The psalmist. You would think
that one who cries daily would not be so needy. But it is because
he is so needy that he cries daily. And what is his cry? Mercy, free
me from my sin. Let me see your face again. And
the fifth reason why the Lord repeats these miracles is to
remind us We regard, I'm sorry, with regard to believing his
crucified body and shed blood is all of our salvation, what
does he say to do? You take the cup and you drink this and you
take the bread and you eat it in remembrance of me, reminding
us. He repeats it, we repeat it.
The Holy Spirit of God is the great remembrancer. He will bring
all things to your remembrance, he said. So when we look back
in our lives, don't we see that we have had to learn this same
lesson over and over again? Haven't we? It seems like every
week, every day, we learn it again. Christ is all, I am nothing. All my hope is in him. To God
be the glory, great things he has done. The sixth reason the
Lord repeats things is because his mercy endures forever. In
Psalm 136, this phrase is repeated 26 times, and it is used in every
verse of that chapter. His mercy endureth forever. It is of the Lord's mercies that
were not consumed. His compassions fail not. Morning by morning, how great
is thy faithfulness. He has remembered us in our lowest
state, His mercy endureth forever. He has redeemed us from our enemies,
His mercy endureth forever. He gives food to all flesh, for
His mercy endureth forever. Oh, give thanks unto the God
of heaven, for His mercy endureth forever. Isn't this exactly what
we need? That's what we see in Matthew
15, a repetition of Christ's compassion. The Son of God comes
to sinners, and they come to Him, and He sees their need,
and He meets their needs Himself. He breaks the bread. What is
that? That's his broken body. And he gives thanks for it. What
is that? It's him thanking his father that he would give him
to give himself for his people. That he might have them and purify
them by his own blood. Isn't that it? Jesus looked with
compassion on the sick and hungry. In compassion, he redeemed his
people from their sins and the curse of the law and the power
of Satan. And he sees us in our sin and
he has compassion on us. It's because of the Lord's compassion. That's the sixth thing we see
here. Will the Lord receive me if I
come to him? He says in his word that he will. Him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. But beware, come with nothing,
find all in him. The apostle Paul sent a letter
to Philemon who had been a slave. He sent him back, I'm sorry,
he sent a letter with Onesimus to Philemon. Onesimus had been
Philemon's slave. And he put this in the letter.
He said, receive him as myself. So Onesimus takes the letter.
He goes back to Philemon. Take a look at this. That's what
we do, don't we? Lord, do as you have said. I
have this word that you've given me. Receive me for Christ's sake. Receive me as him. It's the Lord's
idea. It was unexpected to us. So,
he says, to come with nothing. His commandment is your warrant
to come. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
God commands you to do so and to do otherwise. What would it
mean to do otherwise? It would be like Cain. I see
that God accepts the sacrifice of blood and to come with the
fruit of the labors of your sweat in the cursed ground out of the
cursed, out of your fallen nature and say, I prefer to bring this
instead of Christ. Isn't that the height of arrogant
opposition to your own salvation? Now, the last thing here, And
don't miss this, the reason the Lord repeats this, repetition,
this compassion of repetition is what? It's to teach us as
the master, to teach us to remember, to show mercy to others, isn't
it? You see your brother fallen for
the nth time, what are you to do? Bear one another's burdens.
Did you receive compassion from Christ repetitively? Do you receive
it daily? Does his blood cleanse you of
all your sins? Then what can you do? He is the
Lord of glory. What are you? You're not the
judge. You bear that brother's burdens
with compassion, the same compassion that Christ showed you. You know what the scribes and
Pharisees did? They knew nothing about God's mercy. They cruelly
would use the guilty to get to Christ. And it didn't matter
what they had to do. Stone her. Cast them in the ditch. It doesn't matter. We're trying
to destroy the Son of God. They had no mercy. In the Psalms,
the Lord says, he remembered not to show mercy. He afflicted
the poor and needy man. And so Christ's compassion to
us teaches us to have compassion. Compassion and mercy towards
sinners. That's what we are. God had compassion
on us when he looked beyond our fault and saw our need, didn't
he? And he met it. And he did it. He was the one who laid the requirements
on us, wasn't he? And what did he do? He bore himself
the obligation to fulfill his own requirements on us in himself. He took the full blame to reconcile
us to himself. What compassion, what mercy from
God, amen.