Sovereign Grace Chapel, located
at 135 Annabel Lane in Beaver, West Virginia, invites you to
listen to a gospel message concerning Jesus Christ our Lord. If you'd like to follow along,
I'm gonna be in Galatians chapter five. Galatians chapter five. Let's just read the first six
verses. Stand fast, therefore, in the
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. and be not entangled
again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you
that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For
I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is
a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect
unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law ye are fallen
from grace. For we, through the Spirit, wait
for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ,
neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision,
but faith which worketh by love. And we'll stop right there. My title today is Faith Works
by Love. Faith Works by Love. Now, before
I get started, I'm gonna read you a quote from Horatius Bonar.
That's where I got that song from, but this is something different.
And this I wanna make very, very clear. Faith is not our savior. It was not faith that was born
at Bethlehem and died on Golgotha for us. It was not faith that
loved us and gave himself for us, that bore our sins in his
own body on the tree, that died and rose again for our sins. Faith is one thing, the Savior
is another. Faith is one thing and the cross
is another. Let us not confound them. That's what Horatius Monarch
wrote, and I agree, I agree. Jesus Christ is the Savior. Jesus Christ is Lord. It's his
faith, and we're gonna get into that a little bit here. But I
do have to point out where Paul is talking, Stand fast, therefore,
in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not
entangled into the yoke of bondage. Paul is writing here of the law. When he says, if ye be circumcised,
Christ profit you nothing. Now, there's nothing wrong with
circumcision. But if you're being circumcised,
ah, to keep the law, that's another thing. And that's what he's talking
about here. Because he does say it, I testify
every man that is circumcised, he's a debtor to do the whole
law. And you can't. He's already made that clear.
Whosoever of you, this is where he's talking about in verse four,
Christ has become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are
justified by the law, you're not in grace. You're fallen from
grace. What else can I tell you about
the law? What else can I say? Well, I can say this. For we, through the Spirit, wait
for the hope of the righteousness by faith. For in Christ Jesus,
neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision,
but faith which worketh by love. But here in verse four, excuse
me, verse five, Paul writes this, that's where I wanna start. For
we through the spirit wait for the hope of righteousness. By
faith, by faith. First of all, we wait. We wait. Through the spirit,
we wait for the completion, the perfection of righteousness. and we are waiting by the Spirit
through faith. We are waiting by faith. We wait
for righteousness, the perfect righteousness of Christ, which
we have righteousness imparted and righteousness imputed, but
then one day, folks, there's gonna be righteousness realized,
righteousness complete. We wait for the completion of
our salvation in Christ Jesus by faith. And that's what this
is telling us, is what Paul's writing to us. We, through the
Holy Spirit, wait for Christ to fulfill all of his promises. He said, him that cometh to me,
I'll in no wise cast out. Not only that, I'm gonna raise
him up at the last day. There's gonna be a completion
of this. There is to wit the redemption of the body yet to
come. We have Christ's redemption.
He completed it 2,000 years ago. But there is the redemption of
the body yet to come. Oh, I like that. And we are waiting
through the spirit as opposed to working in the flesh. Galatians 4 verse 31 says this. So then, brethren, we are not
the children of the bondwoman, but of the free, but of the free. We wait, we wait. Believers stand fast in the freedom
given by Christ. What does it say? Stand fast,
therefore, in the liberty, the freedom, wherewith Christ has
made us free, and don't be entangled again in the law. You're free
from the law. Now the law was our schoolmaster
to bring us to Christ. And after, what? Faith, which
works by love. We'll get to it. After faith
come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. I guess I could tell you something
else about the law. We're not under the schoolmaster. We are
under grace. Believers stand fast in the freedom
given by Christ. And here it is, where is it? Verse six. Circumcision or uncircumcision. Neither one of them counts for
anything without faith. Without faith. And let's be clear,
circumcision or uncircumcision doesn't matter. The faith of
God's elect, the faith of Jesus Christ is what matters, is what
matters. Because only Christ matters in
true faith, in true faith. The only matter of the law in
faith is this, believe Christ and get out from underneath that
schoolmaster. Believe in Christ, perfectly
fulfilled and perfectly kept the law, and he did. He did. No one else ever has. And if anybody right now tells
you they're keeping the law, they're lying to you. And I mean
that sincerely. They're lying to you. Because
no man, no woman, no way, no how ever or now keeps the law
except the Lord Jesus Christ. He fulfilled the law. He fulfilled
every jot and tittle that I could not. Oh, what's it say? By faith,
we are free from the law of sin and death in Christ Jesus. Romans 8 too put it this way,
for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made
me free from the law of sin and death. Oh, I like that. My existence, your happiness,
and our fulfillment in salvation does not require any law keeping
on our part. Not one. Christ fulfilled it
all. Christ paid it all. He paid it
all. All the debt I owe and all the
debt you owe if you're in him. What does it say in that song?
Sin had left a crimson stain, but he washed it white as snow. And I'm gonna tell you something,
when Christ washes something white as snow, it's white as
snow. And it's never gonna be anything else. Nobody's gonna
dirty up Jesus Christ's laundry. Does that make sense? You're
not gonna dirty up the garments of his salvation, and you're
not gonna dirty up the robe of his righteousness. No way. He says it's white, it's white.
And it'll be white. Understand, we don't love God
with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. But Jesus Christ
does. Jesus Christ does. We don't honor
our father and mother. Not the way we should. But Jesus
Christ does. He does. We do steal and covet
and commit adultery and he does not. And he gives us faith to believe
him. To believe in him and to believe
him. Oh, I like that. And his people
do believe according to the working of his mighty power. Oh, I like that, I like that.
And the law doesn't enter into any of that, not a bit. We are free in Christ Jesus now,
always, and forever. I'll say amen. Oh, I like that,
I do. But then we come to what I wanted
to talk about here, this one statement here. See, in Jesus
Christ, neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision,
but faith which worketh by love. So, if you want to, just leave out
the law part of this sentence. What we have is for in Jesus
Christ, faith avails everything in Christ Jesus. Circumcision
doesn't avail anything. Uncircumcision doesn't avail
anything. Oh, but faith does. Faith which
worketh by love. I like that. Let me tell you
some things we know about the faith of Jesus Christ. We know
that without faith it is impossible, not hard, not difficult, not
onerous, impossible to please God without faith. Now, according to Acts 16 verse
five, we know churches that the Apostle Paul established were
established in faith. That's what it says. Faith. We know to receive them that
are weak in the faith, but not to disputations. Because they
have faith. They might be weak in the faith.
They might be strong in the faith. It doesn't matter. We are to
receive them. We know that a man is not justified
by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. And we know that by the works
of the law, no flesh is justified. None, absolutely none. It's in Galatians 2 and verse
16. We know, according to Galatians
2 and verse 20, that Christ lives in us. Whoa. And the life we now have, the
one we have now, We live by the faith of the Son of God. And faith works in love. Oh,
I like that too. Oh, I already said it. We know
the law was our schoolmaster under Christ, that we might be
justified by faith. And after that faith is come,
we are no longer under a schoolmaster. And we also know that we are
no longer under the law, but under grace, under grace. Now, and according to this verse,
we know that faith, true faith, the faith of God's elect, the
faith of Jesus Christ is tied to the love of Jesus Christ. Because that faith, true faith,
is a gift from the Lord Jesus Christ in love to every one of
his people in his good time. He does what he wants when he
wants. A lot of people have a lot of
problem with that one. We want it and we want it now.
Well, it's not up to us, it's up to him. He does give faith
to every one of his people in his good time, in the fullness
of time is what it says. And here's this, in love. Galatians 5 and 22 says this,
but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness. What's that last one there? Faith. Faith, faith is tied to the love
of Christ. Faith is tied to the fruit of
the Spirit, which also is love and joy and peace. Ephesians
6.23 says this, peace be to the brethren and love, with faith,
with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Peace
and love with faith from God. Faith works by love. Faith works
by love. You can't separate these things.
Love with faith is given by the father and the son to his chosen
people. 2 Timothy 1 verse 13 says this. Hold fast the form of sound words
which thou hast heard of me in faith and love. which is in Christ
Jesus, which is in Christ Jesus. You can't separate faith from
love. You can't separate love from faith either. It works both
ways. See, Philemon, one in verse five. Hearing of thy love and faith,
Paul wrote, which thou hast, here's where love and faith go,
toward the Lord Jesus. toward the Lord Jesus, and also
toward all saints, all saints. The love of God toward us who
believe in faith is in the beloved Christ Jesus. Luke three and verse 22 says
this, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove
upon him, and a voice came from heaven which said, Thou art my
beloved son. In thee, I am well pleased. And Matthew took this, chapter
17, verse five. This is of the Mount of Transfiguration. And while he yet spake, behold,
a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the
cloud which said, this is my beloved son. in whom I am well
pleased. But he didn't stop there. He
said, hear ye him. Oh, I like that. I like that.
The love of the father is in the son. The love that he has
for us as his people is in his son. The well-beloved son. Oh, yes. This is my beloved son. Hear ye him. Hear ye him. Hear him. The love of God is
in Christ Jesus. Because we, in ourselves, are
not lovable. We're not. We're not. Not in
God's sight. Not in God's sight. But Jesus Christ is. He is eminently
lovable. Oh, I like that. He is love. You understand, God is love.
Jesus Christ is God, Jesus Christ is love. He is love and grace and goodness
and mercy and truth and we are none of the above. He's every
good thing and we're every bad thing. You understand that saying? You
can't preach Christ too high, you can't preach man too low.
I mean the scripture calls us maggots, worms. Red worms, less
than the small dust of the balance. Nothing but a drop in a bucket,
an empty bucket, which means basically we're nothing. But
he is every good and perfect thing, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, 1 John chapter three, And verse 23 says this. Well, verse 22. And whatsoever
we ask, we receive of him because we keep his commandments and
do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his
commandment. That we should believe on the
name of his son, Jesus Christ. love one another as he gave us
commandment. Faith works in love. Faith works
by love. Oh, I like that. Believe and
love. That's the commandment. Now,
if you want to turn the page to 1 John chapter four. Well,
I don't have to turn the page. Verse seven. John goes on. Let us love one another. For
love is of God. Love is not of man. Faith works
by love. And love is not of man, love
is of God. And everyone that loveth is born
of God and knoweth God. I like that. Oh. Everyone that is, oh, everyone that loves is born
of God and knoweth God. What's it say next? He that loveth
not, this is tough, folks. He that
loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love, God is love. In this was manifested the love
of God toward us. Toward us. Because that God sent
his only begotten son into the world that we might live through
him. Oh, I like that. Understand,
that's the love of God. He sent his son to die for us.
We who deserve death, the death of the ungodly, the death of
the malefactor. You understand? The death of
the guilty. Don't receive it because of Jesus
Christ. Because God sent his son to die
for us. Oh, what? Verse 10. Here in his love. Here in his love. Here in his
love. Here in his love. Not that we
love God, but that he loved us. And sent his son to be the propitiation,
the mercy seed, the one who could bring the two people together. The propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us,
we ought also to love one another. No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells
in us and his love is perfected in us. Not because of us, but
because it's God's love. It's his love. Oh, I like that. Hearing is love. Faith that works
in love. Because at one time, we did not
love. At one time, we did not know
God. What? He that loveth is born
of God and knoweth God. At one time I was not born of
God. I didn't know, I didn't love, I didn't love, and I didn't
know. We didn't know the true love
of God which is in Christ for his people. For his people. Because this is love. Faith that
works in love. You understand, I got a question. Do you want to know? You understand,
he that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. So I mean, I
can't ask you if you love God, but I can ask you, do you want
to know the real Jesus Christ? Because there's plenty of false
Christs running around. There's plenty of false Christs
being preached right now on television, I guarantee it. And that's just
on my little cable channels. If you want to know the real
Jesus Christ, he's in this book. And this book is true. They've
tried to adulterate it, they've tried to cut it out, and still
there's truth in theirs. But this is it, do you want to
know him? Look in his book, look in his
book. Listen to the gospel being preached. Because here it is, Christ died
for his people. He died for us according to the
scriptures. Right here they are. He died
for us according to the scriptures. And I'll add this here. In love
for his people. In love for us. Oh, his faith
works in love. And here's the thing. True faith
works. Isn't that tough? You say you
don't believe in works, you believe in grace. No, we believe in grace
and then works. Not works to get grace. That's the way most people preach
it. And they're wrong. And some of them are just flat
out lying. We believe in grace and then works. Because here's
the thing. True faith works. Not only by
love, but true faith works in love. What did it say about Abraham? What did Paul write about Abraham?
He said, Abraham loved God. I'll say that. believed God. Now, he didn't say, and that's
true, he didn't say Abraham believed in God. He didn't say Abraham
believed there was a God. No, he said Abraham believed
God. What God told Abraham, Abraham
believed.