Let's open our Bibles together,
if you will, to 2 Peter chapter 1. 2 Peter chapter 1. And let me make a couple of announcements. No Wednesday night service this
week. And that 15th in the bulletin is Friday night here at the church. We're going to have a supper
here, but it's going to be breakfast. going to be breakfast supper,
one of my favorites. I like breakfast for supper,
don't you? And that's what we're going to
do. And me and Joe and Larry and
Gary and both Garys, we're going to clean up after them. But if
they feed me good, I'll do that. Can you girls sing in a minute?
Could you all do that, all three of you here? But that's what
that's about, the 15th of December. That's a Friday night. Don't
have to get up early Sunday morning and cook and you can stay as
late and eat good and looking forward to it. All right, 2 Peter
1. I'm going to read the first 12
verses. Simon Peter, a servant and an
apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious
faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus
Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied
unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, our
Jesus, our Lord, according as His divine power hath given unto
us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the
knowledge, through knowing God, him that hath called us to glory
and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding and great and
precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the
divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the
world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence,
add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge
temperance, and to temperance patience, and patience godliness.
and to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, charity.
For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that
you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of
our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things
is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that
he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore, the rather, brethren,
give diligence to make your calling and election sure. If you do
these things, you shall never fall. For so an entrance shall
be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Wherefore, I will not
be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things,
though you know them, and be established in the present truth."
All right, Peter. Back in 2 Peter, I want you to
look at verse 1 and 2. These are the verses I hope that
God enabled me to preach from today. Simon Peter, a servant
and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that obtained like precious
faith, that's my subject today, precious faith, that obtained
like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and
our Savior, Jesus Christ. One and the same, God our Savior,
Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied
unto you through the knowledge or the knowing God and Jesus
our Lord. Paul wrote this, excuse me, Peter
wrote this letter because these saints were facing difficult
and going through difficult times. God's all people have always
in this world going through trials and difficult times. The world
was wicked then, and it is now, and it always will be. It always
will be. The world ain't going to change.
God's got to change us and take us out of it. But the world ain't
going to change. It ain't going to get no better. But they needed
to be put in remembrance. Remember, he says, I will put
you in remembrance of the truth that you've heard. And then also
in another place, he said, I'll put you in remembrance of the
gospel. I'll put you in remembrance.
Put your pure minds in remembrance. And you know it's a mistake to
think that we don't need to be reminded. That's why we come
here to the gospel all the time. Because we got minds, it's just
like a, it's like a sieve, you know. Things just leak out. You
know, you get it while you're listening to it. You're enjoying
it while you're listening to it. And then, you know, a few
days later, it's just, you say, boy, I never will forget what
he said. But then, you know, and then
you start trying to tell somebody, I don't remember it now. But
that's the way we are. That's why we're always, Paul
Peter said, I'm not going to be negligent to put you in remembrance. And then he's read another reason
why I wrote this letter, not only because they were facing
and going through difficult times, but there were false prophets
among the people. Look what he said here in chapter
two and verse one, there were false teachers among them, but
there were false prophets among the people, even as there shall
be false teachers among you. And they're bringing damnable
heresies. And so that's why he wrote, you know, false teachers
were among them. And then they were questioning
the promises of his coming. Says, we've heard since the beginning
that he was coming. And he says, no, the scoffers
will come in the last day. And says, where's the promise
of his coming? You said he's coming, he's coming. When's he
coming? Where's he coming from? And they started making fun of
him. Scoffers coming. And I tell you, these saints,
These saints that he wrote to here were facing difficult times
from without and from within. Trouble in their own hearts,
false teachers, false preachers. And Simon Peter wrote to encourage
them, to establish them, to edify them. He said, God, you suffered
a while, God strengthen you, settle you, comfort you, and
establish you. And so he wrote to encourage
them, establish them, edify them, to strengthen them, to settle
them. And then He tells them to make their calling and election
sure. You make sure your calling is
sure and your election sure. He started out with the calling.
You know why He started out with the calling? Because the only
way you know you're one of God's elect is for God to call you.
He has to call you. My sheep hear my voice. And I'll
tell you what, beloved, He said, you know, you see, you're calling,
brethren. Not many wise men after the flesh. Not many mighty men after the
flesh. Not many powerful people after
the flesh. God chose the weak. He chose
the foolish. When people look at us, they
say, that's crazy that the power might be of God, that the God
might get all the glory. he wants them to see there and
that's how the only way you know you're one of God's elect. People
say well I'm going to know I'm one of his elect or not. Have
you ever been called of God? You've been called from darkness
to light? From death to life? From sin to righteousness? Anybody
that's been called know that they've been called from death
to life. Know that they've been called out of the darkness into
light. Know that they've been called from sin to Christ. Know
they've been called from their own righteousness to the righteousness
of Christ. You cannot know your calling.
And that's the first thing he starts with. Don't you see your
calling, brethren? And then if you know your call,
then the second thing you know is, well, if God called me, that
means I'm one of his elect. He chose me in Christ for the
foundation of the world. So he starts with the calling.
And I tell you what, beloved, God's got to call you. You know
when you'll call on the Lord? When He calls on you. You know
when you'll seek the Lord? When the Lord seeks you. You
know when you trust the Lord? When God comes to you and makes
you trust Him. And if He ever makes you trust
Him, He'll never stop making you trust Him. Never stop. And
if He ever stops, we're going Jesses. But He ain't gonna stop. He ain't gonna stop. And then
he says, how do you know you make your calling in election?
Sure. Well, you got to, you got to know certain things. You got
to know God. He says, you know, through the knowledge of God,
knowing God and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, not
just have a knowledge of him, but to know him. That's what
that word knowledge means to know God. It's His divine power
that's given us life. It's His divine power that gave
us the precious promises. It's His divine power that called
us into this world. It's His divine power that came
and gave us these exceeding great and precious promises. And then
you have this foundation. You have this blessed truth and
your elections made sure. Then you build on that foundation.
You start seeking the things, you know, but you got this faith. Then you add the virtue and the
knowledge and the knowledge, temperance, temperance, patience,
patience, godliness to godliness, brotherly kindness, and the brotherly
kindness, charity. And so you build on this foundation.
No wonder that's why the apostle said grow, grow, in the grace
of who? The Lord Jesus Christ. The knowledge
of who? The Lord Jesus Christ. Grow in
the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And oh, I'll
tell you what, beloved, we got to know exactly where we stand.
We need to know exactly where we stand and whom we have believed.
And this bond slave, Simon Peter, Simon Peter, his name was Simon,
and our Lord Jesus Christ named him Peter, because that means
Petra, rock. And I tell you what, here's this
bond slave, this apostle of Christ teaching us here that there's
only one faith. Look what he says, Simon Peter,
as servant and an apostle, that servant is this bond slave, that's
what it means, bond slave. and an apostle of Jesus Christ
to them who have obtained like precious faith. And that's why
the first thing he teaches us here is that there's only one
faith. Only one faith. Obtained like precious faith. Only one faith. Not two faiths,
three faiths, four faiths. What faith are you? People ask
you all the time. What faith are you? You know, faith is not a denomination. Faith is not a church. Faith
is not so much in what you believe, but who you believe. But this
same faith, this one faith to them who have obtained this life
precious faith. It's the same for Jew and Gentile. It's the same for bond and free.
It's the same faith for all classes of people. I don't care what
class of people you're in. And it's the same, beloved, for
all groups of people. People like to be put in groups
now. Nobody's just an American. They're African American, Italian
American. Asian American, nobody's just
an American anymore. They got to be put in all these
groups. But beloved, when it comes to faith, there ain't but
one group, and that's that precious faith that God gives us. And
beloved, this is the same faith for all groups. It's the same
faith for all kinds of people. God's no respect of persons.
He don't regard a person. In this world, we make distinctions.
People make distinctions. But the gospel, this precious
faith, this blessed faith, destroys all human distinctions here.
The whole world, when it faces God, is brought face to face
with God. And all human power, all intellectual
power, All prestige and all highness and lowliness and all these things
are absolutely irrelevant when it comes to the gospel. God makes
no distinctions in men. He saves men and he brings them
to believe this one precious faith. Ain't you glad it's that
way? You know there's people that's
got this great power. That don't mean nothing. People
have great prestige, that don't mean nothing. High learning,
expert here, expert there. God said, that means nothing
to me, absolutely nothing. One faith, one faith. And look
what this one faith is from. It says, that have obtained like
precious faith with us. Now who's he talking about with
us? The apostles. Do you know we got the same faith
that Simon Peter had? He said, an apostle like us.
He said, oh, those fellows were special. They was used of God
like nobody else was, but they had to have the same, we got
the same identical faith that they had. Obtain like precious
faith with us. You know, the apostles, you know,
it comes from the same source, God, comes from the same object,
the Lord Jesus Christ, has the same results. makes us trust
in Christ, makes us know God, makes us trust Christ, makes
us walk by faith, teaches us that there's nothing else but
Christ. And I'll tell you what, beloved,
there's no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must
be saved. And changing times, this is really,
this is something that goes on now. Changing time doesn't mean
we need to change the gospel. Changing times they got to now
they have in most Congregations or these so-called churches they
have two services on Sunday once for traditional. They'll say
we'll have a Traditional service that means for people who just
like whatever Then there's that they have another one is for
contemporary. So they change the gospel for
each group that comes And contemporary, what does contemporary mean?
That means what's going on at the particular time, the contemporary
dress, contemporary thought, contemporary attitudes, contemporary
prevailing ideas and morals. So they meet the needs of those
people who have got to have something that addresses them with their
ideas and their opinions and their feelings. And then the
traditions, they want to be told traditional things, what they
was raised with. But beloved, the gospel don't
change. It don't change from two services.
It don't change from the morning service to the afternoon service.
It don't change from morning to night or from year to year.
It don't change because we change. The gospel's always the same.
And I tell you what, let the times change all they want to,
but God help us to stay true to the gospel of the free grace
of God in Christ. You know what it's called? It's
called the everlasting gospel. Everlasting. I remember years
ago, I thought of that this morning. Pre-Millennium Fundamentals believe
there's seven Gospels. Seven Gospels. There's one for
the Jew, one for the Gentile, one for the Church of God. There
was one in the Garden, and there was another one, you know, for
the Old Testament Saints, and then there's going to be one
that's going to be everlasting. There's seven different Gospels. Did they believe that, Gary?
But, oh, listen. One Gospel. One Faith. And it
doesn't change. It don't change because we change.
It doesn't change because the world changes. It doesn't change
because what we think, feel changes. It's everlasting. And it's always
the same. And he said, here's the precious
faith of the apostles. That's the faith that we have.
We believe we have received the same faith, the same foundation
that the apostles had. We believe exactly the same thing. And that's why it's called the
Apostles' Creed. You go back there and said, we
believe that we shall be saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, even
as they, talking about the Gentiles. We're going to have to be saved
by the gospel, Peter said. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one that can save us. And he says we're built upon
the apostles and saints and apostles and Jesus Christ being the chief
cornerstone. And people are searching the
world, looking all over the world, trying to answer and solve the
problems of life. Well, here it is. They that have
obtained like precious faith with us. with the apostle. That's
the answer. I ain't looking for no... The only person I have problems
with is myself. I don't have no problem with
anybody in this building. Don't have no problem with anybody
outside it. I'm the problem. And only God can deal with that.
Problem of sin. Problem of death. Problem of
rebellion. Problem of a hard heart. Problem
of a... a sinful, wicked mind. God's the only one that can deal
with those things. And he's the only one that can change them.
He's the only one that can do anything about it. But what is
the gospel? What is the gospel? Where do
we get this precious faith that we've got like the apostles had?
Well, look what it says there in verse one. To them that have
obtained like precious faith with us, watch this, through
the righteousness of God, our Savior, Jesus Christ. He said
that God is our Savior and our Savior and our God is Jesus Christ. That's what He said. Through His righteousness, through
His... He's our Savior. He's the center. He's the circumference. And I'll tell you something,
all truth, all truth leads to Him. Any truth that doesn't take
you to Christ is not truth. Any truth from the scriptures
that does not take you to Christ is not truth. That's why Pilate
says, the Lord Jesus Christ, Pilate had the Lord before him.
He says, what is truth? And he said it in a sarcastic
way. What is truth? Nobody knows what
truth is. Truth is relative. And now Lord,
you know what he says? My people know the truth. They believe the truth, huh?
He that's of God hears the doctrine of God. And beloved, there's
no gospel, no gospel apart from our Lord Jesus Christ. And it's
more than believing in God. It's more than believing in God
or having a general belief in God as creator and father. You know, the Jews believe that
there's one God. They do. They believe there's
only one God. The Muslims, the Mohammedans,
they believe that there's one God. But do you know what they
do? You know what they do? They bypass
the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you bypass the Lord Jesus
Christ, you bypass life himself. You bypass what God has appointed
to be our salvation. Jews! Dale, you go to New York
City and you'll see them everywhere. even wear parshals around their
shoulders, wear these little ifids around their waist. But
oh, you go up and ask them, Sid, do you believe there's one God?
Oh yes, Jehovah, Yahweh. You ask a Muslim, he goes and
he worships one God. They call him Allah. But they
bypass the Lord Jesus Christ and that's what, beloved, anybody
that bypasses Christ don't know Christ. And that's why it says,
Through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. That's the heresy. And I tell
you what, the heresy of all ages is to bypass Jesus Christ. Free
willism bypasses Jesus Christ as the God and Savior. Arminianism
does it. People who bypass Jesus Christ,
and that's what they do, they bypass Him. If you go to your
will and your power and your rights and your chance and your
luck and your dedication and your commitment and your prayers
and your altars, if you go to all those things, go to all those
troubles and miss Christ, you've missed everything. Oh, listen,
that's the error. There's always been an error.
There's people who call themselves four-point Calvinists, and you
know what point they deny? You know what point they deny?
They deny particular redemption. They say, we can't preach the
love of God if we preach that Jesus Christ died just for His
elect. That's to deny Christ altogether.
If he loved everybody exactly the same, what good is the love
of God going to do anybody? But here's the thing. Any place
If man is as lost, if man is as lost as the Bible says he
is, if he's not crippled, he's not lame, he's not half blind
and blind in one eye and can see out the other. If he's as
dead and trespasses in sin, is as lost as the Bible says he
is, as God says he is, then there has to be an election, right? Because if man is dead and he
don't know, the dead man don't know nothing. Every one of us
has stood over people that we love and know and after they're
dead and after life leaves their body, they do not know anything
about you or anybody else. You can talk to them. You can
cry over them. You can kiss them and you can
hug them while they're there, but beloved, they do not feel
it. And that's the way it is a dead
man outside of Christ. He does not feel anything of
the Spirit of God. So how in the world is he going
to be saved? God's got to choose him. God's
got to elect him. God has to come and irresistibly,
powerfully call them to himself. And you know who it is that Christ
died for? God's elect. And He promised
to pay all their debt, to wash their sins away, to make them,
I am the children that thou hast given me. And if God calls them
and Christ died for them, then if Christ died for them, you
mark it down, they're going to be saved. and to deny the blood
of Christ, and to deny the power of the blood of Christ, to deny
the righteousness of Christ. Everybody wants his righteousness,
but you can't have his righteousness unless you've washed in his blood.
You can't have faith unless Christ gives it to you. How do you think
Peter got faith at? He wasn't born with it. Listen,
I'll tell you what. This denying Christ, I'm telling
you what, it's easy. You know, it's easy for folks
to deny Christ. There's lots and lots of people
sitting in Baptist churches this morning, and sitting in Pentecostal
churches, and sitting in Methodist churches, and sitting in Calvinist
churches, and sitting in Reformed Baptist churches. that deny Christ. If you go back to the law, listen
to me now, I'm talking about, if you go back to the law, yes,
I went to Calvary and there I got saved. There Christ saved me
and washed me in his blood and there he died for me on the cross.
But now I've got to be sanctified. Now I've got to go back to the
law to find out how I'm supposed to live. I wouldn't know how
to live if I didn't go back to the law. You can't live unless Christ
gives you life. And free from the low, happy
condition, Jesus has bled and there is remission. Oh, my. I'll tell you, and so how do
we get this precious faith? Through the righteousness of
God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. And the heart and soul of this
precious faith is the person of Jesus Christ, our Lord himself. That's the heart and soul of
it. And he says, you've obtained this life precious faith through
the righteousness, through righteousness. You know, God, God saves us righteously. Now, what do I mean by that?
I think, I think you understand
that, you know, we weren't righteous. We weren't acceptable to God.
Well, Christ came. And God saved us through His
righteousness, through Him obeying the law, keeping the law, and
suffering His penalty. And there's justified, this means
we're justified by faith. Only one way to be righteous
in God's sight, to be justified in Christ, in God's sight, is
to have the righteousness of Christ. We can't have precious
faith, we can't have any. And this precious faith, what
it does is it believes that Christ Himself is our righteousness. is He is our righteousness. You
know, you can't look at yourself and say, I'm righteous in my
person. You can't look at yourself and
say, I even act very righteous. But I tell you what, you can
look outside yourself because that's where faith does. You
can look outside yourself and say, there's my righteousness.
There's my justification. Where's it at? Sitting at the
right hand of God. Huh? Oh my. And this righteousness
is given just like faith is given to us. With faith comes righteousness. And with righteousness comes
faith. That's just the way it is. And
it's given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ. Men are always,
always trying to figure out how to be just with God. Here's the
answer. Through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Huh? Y'all remember Years back in
the late 80s, you know, when God taught me the gospel, some
of y'all can remember this, we've been together all these years,
and I came in contact with the gospel men who preached the gospel,
the men who preached this righteousness by faith, the man who preached
Christ and honored Christ and preached free grace. And boy,
when God first taught me the gospel, all I preached on for
two years, how in the world can a sorry, sorry, sorry, sinful
bunch like us be just with God? I couldn't think of nothing else.
How could God, how could I, sinful, wicked, who spent his life and
spent his first years in the ministry lying on God, misrepresenting
God, Telling folks how to live. Telling people that if you didn't
live this way, that way, and another way, you couldn't be
saved. And if you do this, that, and the other, then you'd be
more dedicated. You'd be more devoted. You'd honor God more. Well, when God tore my playhouse
down, I mean, he kicked the foundation out from under it. And I mean,
you know, there's a house in my building. And when God tore
it down, there was absolutely nothing left. He tore it from
the foundation down. And then all I was interested
in was how in the world can we, who have been so lost and so
deceived, and so self-righteous and so arrogant and so self-sufficient
and thought that we could produce our own righteousness, how could
God have anything to do with us? And the answer always came
back the same, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Can't be any other way. Oh, the
gospel. And only the gospel answers the
question of how to be just with God. How a man becomes righteous
is through Christ. Through our Lord Jesus Christ
coming. He came. He came into this world. He came made of a woman. He came
made under the law. He came to obey God. He came
to be our representative before God. And then He lived in this
world. lived in it for over 33 years,
33 years, perfect, sinless, holy, righteous. And his father loved
him and he loved his father and their will was won, their purpose
was won, their gospel was won, their doctrine was won, their
word was won. And then at the end of 33 years,
men, like ourselves, took that holy man, that blessed man, that
glorious man, that sinless man, and we took him because he was
delivered by the determinate counsel of God, and we, with
our wicked hands, crucified the just one. But there was a reason
he was crucified, but we all was partakers of And beloved,
he was, God said it pleased the Lord to bruise him. It pleased
the Lord to make his soul an offering for sin. And he died,
you know your girl saying it should have been her? It was
us! When He was on that cross, our
sins was on that cross. When He was nailed, we was nailed. When He was cursed, we were cursed. When He was satisfying God's
justice, we were satisfying God's justice. How? Because He Himself
bore our sins in His own body on the tree. And He said, except
a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone,
but if it dies, It'll bring forth much fruit. And Christ died. Huh? And oh, listen, He satisfied
God. How do we know He satisfied God? By putting all sins away. He
satisfied God's justice. He consumed God's wrath. And
He put away all our sin. How do we know He did? They come
to get Him on the third morning. We were there one Sunday morning.
Tomb was open. What in the world, who are you
looking for? Jesus of Nazareth. Why, he's not here. Well, where's
he at then? He's risen. And guess what? Hey, listen, you go over into
Galilee, you go on back there, and he's gonna meet you over
there. He's gonna meet you over there. And sure enough, and when
you get there, you'll tell Simon Peter that the Lord's coming. And then he rose again, stayed
here for 40 days and 40 nights. Let everybody see him. Only his
people saw him. Just like only his people see
him now. And boy, I tell you what, they're standing outside,
outdry of Jerusalem on Mount Olive one day. And they're standing
looking at him and he started losing gravity. Oop, he went. And then the clouds received
him. He went into the clouds and there's two men stood by
him, probably the same ones as the two. Said, why stand you
here gazing up into the heavens? Said, this same Jesus that you
seen going away, he's gonna come again just like he left. Now
you go over in Jerusalem and you sit there until he comes.
And they did. And guess where he's at now?
Sitting at God's right hand. And when he gets up off that
throne, this whole world is gonna really change then. We're gonna
change in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. Oh, and I tell you,
beloved, we have no righteousness of our own. We can't produce
a righteousness, but God did through our Lord Jesus Christ
and by His Son. Faith believes that. Faith submits
to that. We submit to the righteousness
of God in our Lord Jesus Christ. We bow to that. What does that
mean? That means that we submit to
the only righteousness God has, the Lord Jesus Christ. That we're
not looking for another and we can't produce another and we
don't want another. Oh, and it's precious. For it
doesn't say for a man to do faith, this is because it's done. It's done. And then it's, let
me tell you, this word precious, Let's look at this word precious.
That obtained like precious faith with us. How did we get this
precious faith? Through the righteousness of
God and our Savior Jesus Christ. That's how we got it. Then look
what he says. It's precious faith. This is
one of the favorite words of Simon Peter. He uses this word
seven times in this one epistle. Seven times he used the word
precious. And whenever you find seven,
you find perfection. So everything about our faith,
everything about our lives, everything about God's promises is precious. Perfectly precious. He uses this
word seven times, seven times. And oh, I tell you what, precious
means it's something valuable, something beyond price. It means
there's nothing like it. You know, things are very precious
to us. Let me give you some things that
are precious to us. Life is precious to us. Life is precious to us. Especially precious to us, those
that we love. Their life is very, very precious
to us. Very precious to us. Our wife,
our children, our grandchildren. You, your life is precious to
me. I dread the day that I have to have to stand over you and
say some words. But, oh, life is precious. Health! Oh, to have health, to be a healthy
person, to be healthy in your mind, to be healthy in your life,
to be healthy in your heart and your lungs, be healthy in your
body, to be able to work all day, and to have a healthy body,
and not have to live on all kinds of medicine, and not have to
live on oxygen, and not have to walk around with walkers,
and go around in a wheelchair. My health is precious! I tell
you, but this, this precious faith is more precious than all
other things put together. You know why? Because it's the
faith of God's elect. That's the faith of God's elect.
And that's Christ our righteousness. Do you know anything more precious
to you than Christ being your righteousness? That means that
right this minute, right this moment in time, We're as righteous
as God himself in Christ. You cannot get more righteous
than that. And it has nothing to do with me, it has everything
to do with him. You can't get more righteous
than that, huh? And why is this faith so precious? Well, let me give you a couple
of things about it. Why is this faith so precious, so valuable? Nothing like it. First, it's
the faith that justifies us. And what do I mean by that? Therefore,
being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Faith brings
with it an understanding that I stand guiltless in God's presence. Guiltless. It's God that justifies.
Guiltless. I have no guilt. I have no sin. You can't be righteous and have
sin. You can't be as righteous as
God and have sin. And why don't we have any sin?
Because Christ put it away. And faith gives us the understanding
of that thing. And that's why faith cometh by
hearing, hearing by the word of God. And the more you hear
this, the more precious it becomes to you. The older you get, the
more precious it becomes to you. You know when it'll really be
precious? I know it's precious to me when I know a believer
leaves this life. I'll tell you what, their faith,
God made them to understand that I didn't have nothing but Christ
and no righteousness but His. That's why we can say how blessed
it is to die in the Lord. how death is gain, how Christ
is gain, how faith is the death of God's people's precious like
he preached last Sunday. Oh, can you value the righteousness
of Christ and the faith that it brings that understanding
to us and enables us to believe it? Not just to believe it back
there, but to believe it now. And if God lets us live, we'll
believe it tomorrow. And if God lets us go to our
deathbed, we'll go to our deathbed believing this. Lay our heads
down on the satisfaction of Christ, just like that. Lay your head
down on your Bible sometimes. Say, Lord, this is it. This is
everything I need. Oh, bless his holy name. This gospel,
this justification brings us peace of conscience. My conscience
don't bother me. It used to just torment me. It
don't bother me at all anymore. peace of mind, then it's precious
because it sanctifies us. And this sanctification means
it separates us from the world. It makes us new creatures in
Christ. It enables us to live for Christ
and live to Christ and live by Christ in this world. And I'll
tell you what else it'll do. Look over here in 1 John chapter
3. Look at 1 John. John is after
Peter. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Go to your
right. 1 John 3, go to your right there, right there. I was going
backwards. And that's not the first time.
It won't be the last. But oh, it's precious. You know
why it's precious? Because it's gonna ultimately,
ultimately end in glorification. Look what he says. Behold what
manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should
be called the sons of God, Oh, God calls us sons, sons of God. Therefore, the world knows us
not. They don't know we're sons of God. We go out to eat, people
don't know we're sons of God. And if you tell them you are,
you know what they'll say? Oh boy, poor old fella. Because it knew him not. Beloved,
now, every time you read it, that's what it's gonna say. Are
we the sons of God? and it doth not yet appear what
we gonna be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall
be like him, for we shall see as he is. Ah, that's where we
gonna end up. Everything ain't like a dog he's
gonna cut away. Cut away. Can you put a price on these
things, this precious faith? And then he says there in verse
two, grace and peace be multiplied. Be multiplied. That means given
to you in great and great and great abundances. When you multiply
something, that means you take one certain amount of numbers
and then you multiply one two times tens twenty three times
ten thirty and not and he says here may peace and grace be multiplied
to you without number in great abundance may peace and grace
be multiplied unto you how through knowing God and our Lord Jesus
Christ Huh? God called us. God elected us. God made us to differ. Our faith
didn't. God did. Faith didn't die on
the cross for us. Christ did. Faith believes what
he did. Trust what he did. Huh? God knows me, and he knows you,
and he placed his hand upon us. Precious faith sees this, knows
this, believes this, and receives these blessed, blessed things.
First Corinthians 1.30 look at it and I'm done. First Corinthians
1.30 everybody knows this verse of scripture. I could quote it,
you could quote it, but let's read it together. First Corinthians
1.30. This is the long and the short
of it. Precious faith. But of him, of
God, are you in Christ Jesus? God put you in Christ. When did
he put you in Christ? before the foundation of the
world. Chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.
Huh? Gave us grace in Christ before the world began. But of
Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God, Christ is, God makes
Christ unto us, wisdom, He makes Christ unto us righteousness,
He makes Christ unto us sanctification, and He makes Christ unto us redemption. Why did He do that? That according
as it is written, if you're gonna glory in anything, glory in the
Lord. Amen. Our Father in Christ's blessed
name, thank you for your gospel. Thank you for justification by
faith. Thank you for this preciousness of faith, how precious it is
to us. You gave it to us, and it's the
same faith you gave to your apostles. They lived by it, died by it,
and now they live without it. in glory. And Lord, as long as
we're here, keep us believing, keep us cleaving, keep us looking,
keep us trusting in our blessed Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is our righteousness and our sanctification and our redemption. Oh, we bless you for him. Thank
you for your glorious, glorious gospel. In Christ's name we bless
you. Amen.