Our services are typically not
interactive, but this morning, I want everybody to say the phrase,
by grace. Just say it, by grace. Say it
again, one more time, by grace. When we think of salvation, that
needs to be the very first thing that comes to our mind. We've
heard it, we've prayed it this morning, we've read it from the
scripture already. We've sung it in our hymns of
praise this morning. By grace, by grace, by grace,
by grace. See, a lot of times in the world
we see all sorts and all manner of Gospels, false Gospels, fake
Gospels, partial Gospels, almost true Gospels. Well, if something's
almost true, it's wrong. If it's almost right, it's wrong.
If it's almost deadly, and if it's almost edible, it's nasty.
You know, if it's almost, it's not. And we don't need to emphasize
so much what the Scripture doesn't emphasize. We need to focus on
what the Scripture teaches us, and the Scripture will show us
error and the Scripture will show us truth, but predominantly
the Scripture teaches us truth. Proclaiming the truth. Proclaiming
the gospel. Proclaiming what God is, and
what God does, and who God is, and what redemption is. So, I
mean, how often do we even dabble in the idea that redemption is
eternal life, redemption is salvation? All these things are grace. And
Paul, writing to Timothy, of course, I turned to John 3 for
some strange reason, but Paul, writing to Timothy, has written
a letter, as we spoke last week, a very intimate letter, because
Paul's relationship with Timothy was unlike any other relationship. Sort of like Jesus' relationship
with John. Maybe that's why I turned there. And Timothy was a protege, was
a mentee, was a son in the faith, someone whom Paul took great
interest in spiritually and personally. And he spent a lot of time with
him, and we know that because we see the writings of Paul,
and we see Acts, and we see where Timothy was always there. He
was always in the shadows of Paul's teaching, and he sent
Timothy into different places as a messenger to send his letters.
He requested Timothy to come back to him and to bring John
Mark, as we'll see in the second epistle. And he was important
to the ministry of Paul, but most importantly, he was important
to the gospel. And more important than that, he was important to
the church of Ephesus and more important than that, his teaching. What teaching? The teaching that
Paul gave Timothy. You notice Timothy didn't write
any letters. Timothy didn't leave any sermons. Because what he
was called to do and the people for whom he was called, they
know more. Yet Paul as an apostle, the letters
and the instructions that he wrote Timothy are important for
the church. They're important for the church
for us to see and to sit and to savor all of these truths
so that we may worship in spirit and in truth, that we may understand
the Lord, that we may grow in our understanding, that we may
learn things that we may not know about Him. Because believe
it or not, learning is a process. Divine revelation is a process. You just don't wake up and have
all knowledge. You don't wake up and have all
understanding. You don't wake up one morning, you don't come
to the knowledge of the truth and go, wow, by the Spirit of
God I can sit and rest and the sufficiency of Christ work for
me. And then the next day you wake up a theologian. It doesn't
work. It's not possible, beloved. God will not do that. He does not do that. He did not
do it for Paul. He did not do it for the other
apostles. He did not do it for Timothy. He sent Paul to Timothy
to teach him. Timothy to the other elders of
the other churches in Ephesus to teach them. And they taught
the church. And as God called more men to the eldership, then
they taught others and taught others and taught others. If
you'll notice, evangelism as we know it in our world is not
really prominent in the first century, is it? What is prominent? evangelism unto church planting
to establish the body of Christ under the headship of the Lord
in order for it to be organized and administrated in such a way
that it would work and live and love and breathe and exercise
faith and grow as a people by the grace of God for the display
of His own face and name. Glory. We have this letter, and I want
you to learn a little bit of how I read and sit on Scripture
as we go through some of these letters. As we talked last week,
let's just read the first two verses again of 1 Timothy. Paul,
an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the command of God our Savior
and of Christ Jesus our hope. To Timothy, my true child in
the faith. Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and
Christ Jesus our Lord to you. This is the introduction to this
letter. This is the greeting. And there's words there, and
there are words there that we take for granted. Language is
a living thing. Language changes. Understanding
changes, meaning changes, pronunciation changes. For example, the word
gospel. Where do we get that? We just
take it for granted. Gospel, gospel. It's written in our English
Bibles, it's on our lips, it's all over the place. Every cult
in the country uses the word gospel if it's Christocentric
in any kind of historical sense. Any cult that uses the text of
scripture uses the word gospel, gospel, gospel, gospel. Oh, it
means good news, but how would you know that? If you picked
up a Bible in the ditch somewhere in the woods and you saw the
word gospel, how would you know it meant good news? I'll tell
you how you'd know it meant good news based on the context. You
might even start calling it good news. Well, the original thing,
the evangel, literally translates to good report, the good report. Here you have a report here.
Here's our CPI data for the month, consumer price index, something
that I actually look at. Jobs reports, things like that.
Weather reports. You know, we all look at reports.
Sports headlines, some of us look at. Some of us like to look
at politics. I don't know why, but you like
to do it so well. It's your brain. Some of us just
like to look through. We don't look at the newspaper.
and sit there and are trying to be convinced of something.
We read the report. Well, the gospel literally means
the good report of the finished work of Jesus Christ, the God-man,
the Son of the living God. And of course, all that's not
inclusive in the Word, because the word good report comes about
anything. It was a very common word, just
like the word good report. Did you get a good report from
the doctor? Did you get a good report from school? Did you get
a good report from your counselor's session? Did you get a good report
here? Did you get a good report there? Did you hear the news? Did you
hear the news? Did you hear the news? It's common. Just like the word ecclesia,
which means assembly. It was never used in the context
of people gathering together to worship Jesus until the first
century. It was never ever used ever in that context. It meant
gathering most of the time political. So when someone would say Ecclesia,
or as we would wrongly transliterate the word church from Ecclesia,
it's wrong. That doesn't even make sense.
It's two different distinct things. But nobody would say, oh, I've
got a business meeting today. I've got to go to church. Where
are you going? I'm going to church. But that's
what it means. I'm going to assemble. And it
is not a spiritual word. It is not a Christian word. The
word church is not a Christian word. The word assembly is not
a Christian word. But Christians assembled in the
first century, so the people began to call it the assembly
of the saints or the assembly of the Christians, which was
a pejorative term. It was a term to mock them. Oh,
little Christ followers. Oh, look at those little Christ
followers. People trying to be like Christ, trying to be like
Christ. And yet we take these words and we just go, this is
truth, but we don't know what we're talking about. And the
same is true with the word love. I've talked about the word love.
The word love, we use the word love equivocally with all sorts
of things. I love pizza, I love sports, I love good weather,
I love my wife, I love my kids, I love my dog, I love my cat,
I love my fish, and so on and so forth. Oh, I love the Lord
Jesus and he loves me. But does Jesus love my fish? Does Jesus
love pizza? See how weak language has become?
And then you got the hieracritics where there's different types
of Greek words that mean the same thing and you gotta know
what the Greek word, you don't have to know what the Greek word
is. But we do need to recognize, beloved, that we have a watered
down sense of vocabulary when it comes to the Bible. And that
vocabulary, believe it or not, was taught to all of us by someone
else in some way. And when we misuse terms in front
of each other, We don't have the right to subject our ideas
or opinions against the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And so
when Paul writes a letter and he says, Jesus Christ, he's an
apostle of Jesus Christ, by the command, you know what that means? He had no choice. It was not his decision. It was
not something he sat around and thought, You know, I see these
apostles going through mortal exhaustion and suffering, imprisonment,
beating, hatred, loss of family, loss of life, loss of income.
It's not like a career move. If you interviewed for a job
and they said, yeah, well, we want you to work seven days a
week, one day off a year, and we're going to pay you nothing.
Sign me up! Nobody signs up for that. That
is the ministry. Okay? That is the gospel ministry. That is the apostolic ministry
for Paul. That was what he signed up for.
He didn't sign up for it. God commanded him. to see Him
by blinding Him physically, spiritually giving Him sight, and then send
Him into the world, not to be this evangelist to tell people
about the offer of salvation. There's no such thing in Scripture.
Salvation is the report, the gospel is the good report of
the finished work of Jesus. I don't know when the first time
I said what I'm about to say, but I have been saying it as
long as I can remember, which short-term memory, I don't know.
But Jesus did not die to make salvation possible. He died in
order to make it certain. I want you to hear that again.
Jesus did not die to make salvation possible. He died to make it
certain. Now remember the first season in which I said that to
a crowd and I saw mouths go open. And after that service, I don't
even think I was on the West Coast yet, but after that service
I had a little crowd wanting to talk about that. Because that
wasn't a misspeak in their sense. That was a theological error. And you know what, those people
never saw it. They never saw that the good report of the gospel,
the good report of Christ was the finished work of salvation.
They were taught that they had come to their senses and reasoned
well enough to understand that the story of Jesus was good enough
in their mind for their salvation, so they accepted it as true and
God saw their acceptance and went, lo and behold, Johnny Boy
just got right with me, and now I'm gonna forgive him. The death
of Christ forgives us. We're justified by the death
of Christ. We're justified by believing in the death of Christ.
We're justified because of God's electing, loving grace. So there's a lot we could talk
about. I mean, literally, I could spend months in these first two services.
And I might. I'm just going to let the Lord
lead me, and we're going to teach some theology over the next few
weeks. And what does that mean, theology?
It's a science. Theology is a science. And it's probably the worst science
in the world because I am subject to its object, not the other
way around. As a researcher, subject matter,
I get to be the expert. Read everything, read everything,
read everything, decide who's right or wrong based on where
I think I'm heading with it. I mean, don't think research
isn't twisted. I mean, I've had academic mentors who've stood
me to the side and said, Just go ahead and get your premise
down and search for the things that succeed. I mean, that agree
with it. I mean, you know? You think nine out of ten dentists
really pick crest? Let's get a thousand dentists.
When you got nine that say crest, get one of those oddballs over
there and throw them in the book. Look, nine out of ten. I mean,
you can make it work. But theology is a science in
which the learner is subject to its object, is subject as
a subordinate to the Lord. and we can learn all we want
to learn, and we can know all the data and the information
that we can stuff into our cerebral tissues, but beloved, until the
Lord God Himself opens our hearts and minds to the truth of the
knowledge, we will never rest in Him. We may know how to get from here
to Tokyo on a map, but beloved, I promise you, I promise you,
you can't make that trek on foot. We're not going to make theological
treks in our own brains, in our own ability to learn. But beloved,
we should be learning. We should be reading the word.
We should be listening. We should be paying attention.
We should be questioning. We should be asking. We should
be discussing. We should be talking. But above
all of that, we should be rejoicing and resting and worshiping. And
all of that includes serving one another and being patient
with one another and being long-suffering and being kind. God, our Savior, Jesus Christ,
our hope. How is it that we can call Jesus
Christ our God and our hope and our Savior? How is it that Timothy
could so confidently write about the assurance of this salvation?
What is the assurance of salvation? Beloved, it is the blood of Christ.
It's why we take the Lord's table. to remember the blood of Christ,
the payment for our redemption, the purchasing power for His
people. He bought a people, and those
people were bought when He said it was finished. And there is
no return policy. There is no recall. We are His, and nothing can separate
us from His love. We're going to be in some Romans
8 in the next few weeks. We're going to be all over the place.
You'll have to forgive me, I'm going to be scatterbrained. But
look at these things, look at the greeting here, to Timothy,
my true child in the faith, and these three things that he uses
in his greetings, grace, mercy, and peace. Now, it's very typical
for Paul to start his letters with grace and peace. And then
he says, to you, and at the end of his letters he often rephrases
it this way, grace and peace be with you. And 2 Timothy, the
construction of 2 Timothy is so biblical. I know that seems silly to say,
but it undergirds the idea of the authority of Scripture or
the historical moniker of Sola Scriptura in such a way that
it establishes everything, I'm gonna tell you this, everything
God has ever said about His Word being true in the prophets. 2
Timothy really just takes that and compresses it into a diamond.
into a priceless gem. And Paul even tells Timothy to
be strengthened by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ given
to you through him. He expresses it that way. And
the way that Paul tells Timothy, I'll just go ahead and give you,
because we'll be a long time before we get to 2 Timothy. The way Paul says
that gets to Timothy is through Paul's letters. I want you to
think about that for a second. is through the writing of his
letters about the Lord Jesus and the commands of the Lord
Jesus through his apostle apostolic authority as a messenger, as
speaking for Jesus, as if Jesus has given the commands, because
he has, that the grace of the Lord Jesus is with us and to
us through the writing of his letters so that the New Testament
is indeed the breath, very breath of God, as is the Old Testament.
Breathed out by God, 2 Timothy 3. You ever wanted to breakdance,
that ought to make you want to breakdance. Because if anybody ever wanted
to touch the divine, there it is. Put it in your head. Put
it in your ears. Let it come out of your mouth.
But there's three words. Grace, mercy and peace. Not just
grace and peace. Grace, mercy and peace. Now,
there is a sense in which we can define these words through
time, right? We come through time, we can
go back to the original idea of gratia. Latin, which means
thanks. Did you know that? It means thanks,
okay? Thankful. And then we can look
at the Old French, and I won't go there because my brain will
sideline and I won't stay on task, but we can go through history
and we can look, we can see how theologians and historians have
used it. And believe it or not, the word grace is predominantly
used in what we call secular literature. It's not a Christian term, okay?
It's not a Christian term. And in the Old Testament, there
are three or four Hebrew words. In the Greek, though, that's
in the Hebrew. In the Greek, there's one. And
the word is pronounced hadith, hadith, C-H-A-R-I-S, if we were
to transliterate it. Most of us country folks say
careth. or Charis, if we're from the North Georgia. Charis. That's
what we call, you know, our cousin Charles. Charis. But Hadis, what does it mean?
It means grace. The word grace, it means grace. And there's examples
in the Old Testament of God dealing with a people that he is gracious
toward. And there's a very, and let me
tell you, beloved, I'm gonna tell you now, in the use of the
term, There's a very myopic and strict use of the term grace
in the New Testament. And it is not often easy for
us to discern. But then some people look at
the word mercy and they think, well mercy, isn't that like grace?
Absolutely. Isn't it true? Is not grace mercy
and mercy grace? It's not in the court of law.
What does grace mean? Let's look and see how it can
be defined in a manner that's congruent with the Scripture.
So the New Testament alone, the word grace is used in a way to
illustrate showing grace. To show grace. Let your words
be gracious. To show grace. The word grace
can also mean to be gracious. The word grace can also mean
to bestow favor. And that's the one that we're
going to focus on this morning because that's where when we
see the word in the New Testament specifically ascribed to being
God's grace, possessive with an apostrophe S, God's grace,
it is always showing, or not just showing, bestowing favor. But there's another way. The term grace can really be
understood to act freely. to act freely. That's why we
say that the gospel is of free grace and sovereign grace. Grace is gift freely, unmerited,
undeserved, unearned. So in the courts, if someone
is a murderer and they are found guilty and they are now for sentencing
and the judge says, well, you know what? I didn't like that
guy anyway, so I'm going to put you on probation. You're free
to go." That would be grace, right? The man deserved to go
to prison or to die, but the judge said, eh. But actually,
if the judge did that, it would be gracious and merciful in the
context of our justice system, but it would actually be unjust.
It would literally be wicked. Why? Because the crime would
not be satisfied, the payment, the law would not be paid. Where
in the grace of God, instead of destroying His people who
are guilty of sin as sinners, and guilty and deserving of all
wrath and destruction forever, eternally, I don't want to be
redundant here, God instead says, nope, you're forgiven. How does
He do that? Because He bestowed all of His
justice on Jesus in their place. So for every person for whom
Jesus died, they will not perish, but they will have eternal life. Grace. Mercy. Mercy is an intimate word. Mercy
is a word that is part of grace that expresses a desire to truly
have intimate fellowship. Because usually when someone
is merciful, it's because they truly care about the object of
their mercy. Now I want you to hear this for
a second. This is a very friendly letter between two people who
are very intimate, not only in the faith, but in life and ministry.
And even though it is a friendly letter, it holds great authority
because Paul is an apostle. He didn't have to undergird his
apostolic authority to Timothy. You ever think about that? He
didn't have to really get in there, Timothy, you know I'm
an apostle, right? I'm your brother and I'm your friend and we're
bros and all, but I'm an apostle, right? No, Timothy didn't have
that problem. He didn't question whether or
not he was above being demanded of by the apostle Paul. He knew
the instruction that Paul gave him, whether it be letter or
over coffee or whatever, camel juice or whatever they drank
back then, that it was authoritative. But Paul's wanting to expressly
show something in this letter that I don't think was intentional,
but by the Spirit of God it was absolutely purposeful, is that
though Paul is an authority and a head over Timothy, he loves
him like a son, like a child. And so the expression of mercy
sandwiched between grace and peace is to help Timothy understand
the mood of Paul and his love for Timothy and his love for
the gospel and his love for the Lord and his love for the Lord's
people. Why did Paul care about Timothy? Because Paul cared about
the church of Ephesus, which was a problematic city. And Paul had been there. And
just preaching the gospel humbly and quietly and in small circles
caused an entire riot. Great is Artemis of the Ephesians. Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.
And the scripture says for hours they cheered it on in the center
of town. because they were sick and tired
of people hurting their economy because their money was made
in the business of idolatry. Just like when you go to a theme
park and you get out of the ride and this your favorite superhero
mug and cap $3 at Walmart 300 at the park. And the same thing
is true like a sporting event and you get out and you know,
you get to buy the banners and the caps and the little thumbs
and the things or whatever the big hands. When people worshiped
in Ephesus, they came out and into the shops of the market
and they bought worship items because great is Artemis of the
Ephesians. And Paul put Timothy, his precious
child in the faith, as the elder of elders in that area to appoint
men at all the churches to give order and oversee and make sure
people learn and obey. His teaching according to Christ. That's why this letter's written.
Timothy did not need reminding of his theology. He did not need
learning of his theology. He had spent years with Paul. He did not need it, but he did
need it, you see. We're never not learning in the
faithful. We're not looking for the new.
We're not looking for further distinctions. We're not looking
for new creative ideas. We're not looking for new ways
to become relative. We're learning the same thing over and over
again, that it may be new today. The mercies of the Lord are new
today. So the good report of Jesus Christ
is new today, it gives us hope, it gives us peace because it
has granted us hope and it has granted us peace and it has granted
us mercy by the command of God our Savior and our hope. And
we get all of that through the writing of the apostles and here
we are every week gathering together to listen to these things and
to be instructed in these things. And I think that we need to pay
close attention to the reality that God loves His people. I mean, I read it. I read out
of the Old Testament a lot in the beginning of our services
in Isaiah and Psalms and others, other prophets. And we see it
constantly. We see God standing up and going,
you know what? You have defamed me, like He says to the Israelites
through Ezekiel. You have defamed me among the
nations. You've ruined your testimony. You've ruined my name. You've
destroyed the very fabric of my essence amongst the people.
Not that they've done anything to God, but they've ruined his
reputation. You've blasphemed. So it's not for your sake that
I'm about to act, God says to Ezekiel, but for mine. Now, if we were God and someone
defamed our name, we'd just pop them good in the mouth, wouldn't
we? We'd make an example out of them. Well, what is the example
that God makes out of Israel over and over again? Well, two
ways. He brings His loving discipline to them as a whole that He puts
them under captivity constantly, but then out of that group that
are captive, He pulls a remnant out. You see this shadow? This
is God's grace being understood in His sovereignty over human
history. He says, for my sake I'm about
to act so that the world may know that I am God and that those
people who hold you captive now and who have seen you fall into
blasphemy and defame me, they will see you worship me and they
will know that I am your God and you are my people. You cannot
escape me. Same thing that Isaiah says in chapter 30 and 33. I
will write on your hearts My law. I will show you My righteousness. I will put in you a heart of
flesh in place of a heart of stone." And over and over again
we see God working with His people. By grace you have been saved.
So when we hear the word grace in our scriptures and in our
ears, we need to automatically and certainly think of salvation,
because that's what it is. By grace you have been saved,
through faith, which in and of itself is not your doing, but
is a gift of God's grace. You see, that's what the flesh
does. It always tries to find a way
in which we are somehow attached to our success. Even if it's
just a little bit, just a little bit of knowledge, just a little
bit of smarts, just a little bit of intelligence, just a little
bit of action, just a little bit of power, just a little bit of
weakness. You know, we can be powerfully humble. Oh, I just
couldn't do a thing. I just sat there and let God
do it all. That's not humble. That's self-righteousness. I
just let God do it all? Is that what Paul did? Sat around,
I just let God make me an apostle? No, he was riding to Damascus
to kill the dag-blasted disciples. Can you say dag-blasted? I don't
even know what it means. The Yosemite Sam taught me that. By grace you've been saved. That
little chain of Scripture in Romans 8 that we start in the
very beginning of it, but in 28-39, those 11 verses, there's
a lot there. There's a lot there. Let's hear
it. And we know that for those who love God, all things work
together for good. For those who are called according
to God's purpose, for those whom He, God, foreknew, He, God, also
predestined to be conformed to the image of His own Son, in
order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those
whom God predestined, God also called, and those whom God called,
He also justified, and those whom God justified, He also glorified. Paul asks, What then shall we
say to these things? If God is for us, then who can
be against us? God did not spare His own Son,
but gave Him up for us all. How will He not also with Him
graciously give us all things? Graciously give us all things. Who shall bring any charge against
God's elect people? It is God who justifies. Who
is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised,
who was at the right hand of God, who was indeed interceding
for us. Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Shall tribulation, shall distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword,
as it is written, for your sake we're all being killed all the
day long, we're regarded as sheep to the slaughter. No, in all
these things we are more than conquerors. through Him, Jesus
Christ, who loved us. For I am sure that neither life,
nor death, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things
to come, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else
in all of creation." And the ESV omits principalities, but
the idea of principalities is powers. "...nor anything else
in all creation will be able to separate us from the love
of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." This is all of grace.
God purposed, decreed, planned a salvation for a people. And at the time He appointed,
after the counsel of His will, He said three little words. No, four little words. Let there
be light. And there was light. And the
light was good. And He started it all. He started it all. The grace of God for His people
is His favor toward them unto salvation. And this is the teaching
of Paul. God's grace is not a thing. I
want you to hear this for a second. God doesn't have pockets. He's
got cinnamon candy in this one, licorice in this one, Oh, but
what's in this one? It's grace. That's not how it
works. Grace is intangible. It is not
a thing. It does not exist in the world
or in the cosmos or in the ether or in God's economy. It is God's
favor. It is His attitude. It is His
disposition. It is His action. It is His doctrine. It is His teaching. It is His
working. It's the manner in which God
approaches His people. Grace. Which is so powerful,
it is so purposeful, it is so intentional that we've created
it as a thing. Just like faith is not a thing.
It doesn't exist. You can't say this is faith.
It doesn't exist, y'all. I don't know what to do but break
my fingers off. It's just so frustrating. Faith. Grace. These are standings. We stand in the economy of grace,
where the only currency that operates for the pleasure of
God is His work. And anything that He has done,
said, decreed, or desired for His people is grace. It's grace. And when you look and you look
and you look and you look, and beloved, I have spent, I don't want to exaggerate, I'm
just going to say seven months, studying every single passage
in the entire Bible that relates to God's possessive grace. And it is always in the language,
salvation for His people. Listen to me. Biblically. Is it gracious? Is it gracious
that the sun came up this morning? Absolutely. Is it gracious that
the wicked have food? Absolutely. But let's be careful. Let's be careful. To make sure
that When we come to dissonance, that we resolve those chords
in a place where the Bible will keep harmony. Grace, mercy, peace from God
the Father in Christ Jesus our Lord. Paul was a very studied
man as a Jew. Paul had a resume above resumes,
the Jew of all Jews. You saw his resume there that
he wrote to the church of Philippi. Named Saul. You know, Paul is
a transliteration of a Hebrew word, Salos. Paul would be the English of
the Greek, okay? His name wasn't changed. He just
used a Greek name. He was circumcised on the eighth
day. He was named after the king of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin. You see this resume. He knew
everything. Zeal, unmeasurable. Insistence
on right worship and right theology and right doctrine and right
understanding and right living. Oh my goodness. And everybody
in here goes, Pharisee, that's exactly right. You see, when anyone in the economy
of grace insists on other conditions but grace, they are a Pharisee. We are Pharisees. We have Pharisaical
ideology. But what does that mean? We're
in a meat suit that's sinful. We're sinners. And we're going
to do what we think is best in regard to how other people ought
to think, do, and live to the point that we're feeling pretty
good about ourselves, but we'll humble brag, well, you know,
I'm a sinner too. Then hush until you're Christ. You see? Why are you saying that? Because
that's what I say to myself. A lot of these admonished, weird things
that I just spit out, that's what I say to myself. I talk
to myself, y'all. I'm really fruity. Tiffins, until you are Christ,
shut up. Until you are God Almighty, keep
your opinion to yourself. You see? And where is the God
line? We're not talking about that.
We're talking about instruction in grace. We're emphasizing grace. We're
not de-emphasizing other things. You see the manner in which wickedness
is rooted from our toes to the top of our heads? That when someone
emphasizes the importance of one thing, it automatically,
we get all hostile and triggered. Oh, you're not emphasizing that.
No, because we're not talking about that right now. Thursday,
most of us are going to eat some food. Some of us are going to
overeat. Some of us are going to undereat.
Some of us are going to eat more than our appropriate share of
different types of food. We walk into a table and it's
spread full of food and there's 12 dishes and three different
meats and 900 pounds of sugar. And you walk in and go, I want
an oreo. You don't love me because I don't
have a... I mean, you know what? What do you do with that guy?
Uninvite him. You see? But that's what we do
when we're emphasizing Christ and His glory and the grace that
He gives to His people. Why are the antithesis always
made the banner? Because that's what Satan does
to the mouths of people who don't listen to the Scripture. You
see? And I'm the king of that. By the Lord's mercy, He humbles
me to the point where I don't feel good enough to do
anything about it. Grace. Paul, being extremely
intelligent, extremely tall, extremely sound, Sanhedrin, not
just a Pharisee, he was of the ruling class. He was a ruler
of the rulers of the spiritual rulers. And he's writing to Chloe, and
Chloe's like, Paul's like, yeah, everything's good in Corinth,
Chloe, so great to hear the good report. And she comes back, she
said, what report you reading? Mm-mm. Paul writes back and says,
what do you mean? I got this letter from such and
such, and everything's great. And Chloe writes back and goes,
oh, man, this was an all-night messenger, you know? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no. And Paul's like, just give me a list. I'm the
apostle. This isn't gossip. Give me a
list. I'm coming down and I'm going to deal with it. Give me a list. So she
gives him a list. And then Paul falls out on the
floor. Three days later, he comes back. It's a joke about falling
out. Could you imagine thinking everything's
well in the end of the report? You got incest. You got backbiting.
You got gossip. You got slander. You got lying.
You got thievery. You got gambling. People suing
each other over petty civil differences. The name of Christ is defamed
when the church lives like that. And God's discipline comes. How
does it come? First and foremost, through the
correction of the apostles. That's an act of grace. That's
a work of grace. There's a lot of things. We're
going to talk about all those. Part three or part four of this sermon,
I guess. But Paul tells the Corinthians,
He's not coming to them in wisdom, and none of them are wise. As
a matter of fact, He calls them infants. He calls them children.
He calls them unspiritual, because they won't listen to what He
has to say. And He's ashamed of them, but
He does not hate them, and He does not condemn them, and He
does not call them unbelievers. He does not disturb their intimacy
with the Lord Jesus. He builds upon that, you see.
He says, by grace you have been saved, and because of that, the
foundation of everything that you have and everything that
you are and all that you will ever be is built on Christ. So
if you don't build on the foundation with the same material, you are
going to crumble. Chapter 2. Let's hear it. Chapter 2. 1 Corinthians 2. And
when I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to
you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. As a
matter of fact, according to historians and the writing of
Paul, a lot of people believed that he had a speech problem.
For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. Now, see, some people think, oh, look,
that's just a... Listen, guys. This is the work of an apostle.
This is the work of an evangelist. This is the primary undercurrent
of the river of the soul and the heart of a pastor to do the
work of an evangelist, which includes the current of the cross
of Christ. The cross of Christ just saying
Jesus died on the cross. Millions of people died on the
cross, but only one of them was the Christ, the Messiah, the
anointed one of God. So only one of them actually
satisfied God's wrath. Only one of them was raised to
life because He Himself had no sin. Only one of them secured
the salvation and the redemption of His people. Only one of them
was an act of grace. Only one of them was a work of
grace. I decided to know nothing among
you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. What does that mean?
That Paul taught the good report of Christ and answered any question.
And God saved His people. through the work of Christ. And
then God granted His people faith in Corinth when Paul preached
the work of Christ. And I was with you in weakness,
and I was with you in fear, and I was with you in much trembling,
and my speech and my message were not implausible words of
wisdom. In other words, I didn't make
a lot of sense. I rambled. But in demonstration of the Spirit
and of power. I always find it interesting, through my life,
I've talked to pastors of various iterations, and some of them
emphasize this idea of tapping into the Spirit's power. Hogwash. God is Spirit. The Spirit is
God. We don't tap into Him. He uses
us as He wishes. And to approach the power of
God is to approach the word of God. Romans chapter 1, I am not
ashamed of the good report of Jesus the Messiah, for it is
the power of God unto salvation. What's the power of God unto
salvation? The finished work of Jesus. How does that finished
work effectively change the heart and minds of men unto faith?
By hearing it. Who does the work? The Spirit
of God. When and how? As He wishes. The wind blows. We are nothing but mouths. My speech and my message were
not plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit
and of power. How do they know? Because the Scripture or the
teaching of Christ was given, the person of Christ was given,
so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but
in the power of God. Now see, I've been learning a
long time. And the more I learn, the more
ignorant I realize I am. And I think about things a lot. I think deeply about things.
I go into sad places. I try to observe every possible
thing that could possibly go, or go wrong, or go right, or
that I could possibly consider, to the point where I hang in
the atmosphere many times in my life without any progress. I want you to think about that
for a second. And it's debilitating when simply
resting in the truth of Scripture is sufficient. But the wisdom of men is powerful,
isn't it? It's powerful. But our faith
cannot rest in that. Our faith cannot rest in how
well your pastor studies, or how eloquent the teaching may
be, or how precise, or how technical, or how philosophical. Beloved,
that's what we do. We come up with new ways of thinking
about things. That's what we do. That's what
our minds do. Don't think about it? I mean,
how many years have some of us been using a weed eater, but
yet we'll see a hack on Pinterest that goes, Never thought about
that. Look at it works. And then we become the expert
weed eater guy. Or a new way of using all that
stuff that we won't throw away. Pinterest exists because we're
hoarders. And there are a lot of things
that I think about and that I believe are spiritually mature that if
I taught from this pulpit, it would destroy your lives. For several reasons. One, I could
be wrong. And I don't want to be wrong,
not because of me, but because of you. I could be crazy in the
way I think. So what's the simple answer to
that? Just stick to the text. Not the inference, the text.
The text was sufficient for the apostles. The text is what they
wrote. The text is sufficient for the
very first foundational elders of the church. The text was sufficient
for the early church. It's sufficient now. But beloved,
how many books do I own? And I used to get excited when
somebody brought, you know, Tertullian up, or any of the founding, or
the early church fathers, or any of these archeological things. I'm like, this is exciting, why?
Because I'm a history nerd in certain subjects. I love the
history of fighting, I love the history of guns, I love the history
of doctrine, the history of the church, history of politics. I love sociology, I love anthropology,
I love all the crazy, let me be invisible and look at the
world and think about how it might be working. And what good
is that? It's the wisdom of men. It doesn't
matter. And we have whole denominations
and whole associations of so-called churches and all they do is they
go out and they train men and women for ministry. This is what
you do and this is why you do it. Let's get a vision statement,
a purpose statement. get our goals. That's what you're taught.
It's what you're taught when you're in business school. It's what
you're taught when you're at Harvard. It's what you're taught when
you're anywhere. It's what you're taught when you go to the SVA and you
want to start a business making popsicle sticks. They want to
see a cash plan. They want to see a marketing
plan. They want to see a to-market plan. You're going to go to an
IPO. I want to see it. I want to see it. I want to see
all that. Beloved, that's not what the gospel is all about.
It's not about a plan. And evangelism is not about a plan. It's not
about a strategy that we can do to reach people. It's just
about making disciples of one another as we go along under
the protection of the Word of God and His Spirit in all power
as God has seen fit for us to be. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians
2, he says, I came not in wisdom and not in power and very implausible
so that the Spirit would be demonstrating His power, so that your faith
might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
Yet, among the mature, you see, this is where I'm getting, among
the mature, among those who can handle it, listen to me church,
among those who are ready, among those who have the palate, among
those who are rested so firmly in the grace of God, what does
Paul say? We do impart wisdom. Although it is not a wisdom of
this age, nor a wisdom of the rulers of this age, because they
are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and a
hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our
glory. None of the rulers of this age
understand this. For if they had, they would not have crucified
the Lord of glory. But as it is written, what no
eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love Him." Now think about
that. And I don't have time to really talk about it, but think
about it. You can't imagine God's glory. You can't imagine His
grace. You can't imagine His gospel. You can explain what
is revealed and only what is revealed, not what is imparted
in some secret way. These things God has revealed
to us through the Spirit of God. For the Spirit searches everything,
even the depths of God Himself. For who knows a person's thought
except the spirit of that person which is in him? So also no one
comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now
we have received not the spirit of the world, but have received
the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things
freely given to us by God." What is the message here? This is
grace. We can't, only He can. We can't
understand Him, only His Spirit can understand Him. His Spirit
gives us stuff freely. You see how that definition of
grace? Freely. To act freely. To bestow favor. God bestowing favor. You know
the simplest thing that Paul tells the Hebrews is the simplest
act of maturity, the first step of maturity is to listen to the
instructions of the Bible. I'm going to say that very plainly
once again. The first act and step of maturity
is that the Spirit of God gives us the peace to simply do what
the Bible tells us to do in all circumstances. Not the theology, the do. Understand that all of this is
of grace. Now do these things as the Spirit of God teaches
His people. Those who don't do, don't understand. Don't understand
what? The authority of Scripture. I
didn't say they were lost. You see how silly that is? Don't
say that. If they were lost, then all of
Corinth was lost but Chloe. If they're lost, then all of
Galatia was lost except the guy that took the letter. Christ saved them, and the Spirit
of God teaches us that is God's grace at work. Grace isn't an
inoculation, poof, oh, I got grace, hey, I can see. No, the
seeing is an act of grace. The understanding is an act of
grace. Faith is a gift of grace. Revelation is how one comes to
understand the truth. We impart this in words not taught
by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual
truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept
the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolish to him,
and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually
discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself
to be judged by no one. Notice he doesn't say make judgment
on, just having discernment. For who has understood the mind
of the Lord, so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of
Christ. See, this is a gift of grace,
this is a work of grace, this is a standing of grace. What
is the mind of Christ? Paul tells us in Philippians,
this is the mind of Christ that you have, beloved. That though
he was in all ways God at all times, equal in every sense,
the fullness of deity, He did not take His stance as God, something
to be made much of, but became a slave, obedient unto death
as a criminal, not even guilty, and die. That's the mind of Christ. That's
the grace of God. The grace of God is seen in God
Himself becoming flesh and dying for His people without a word
in His defense. I don't want to die, somebody
might think I'm a sinner. I don't want to die, somebody might think
I'm a murderer. That's just not the right way, Lord. I don't want anybody to think
that I'm not spiritual. I don't want anybody to think...
Listen, that's the hardest part of life, isn't it? Somebody thinking
that you are what you're not in a negative way. Welcome to Christianity. Welcome
to the suffering of our Lord. He was God and he was treated
like a dog. He was even found innocent and
they killed him anyway because it was fitting for the political
environment of the day. Religious political environment. God, thank you for America that
the church doesn't run it. Because we'd all be hanged. But our brothers do not address
you as spiritual people, Paul says. but as the flesh, notice
what he says, he quantifies that, he qualifies that, infants in
the Lord Jesus, infants in the Messiah. He doesn't say you're
not, he says you're babies, you're infants. I fed you with milk
and not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food, and
now you're not even ready. I go away, and y'all eating Twinkies
all the time. For you were still of the flesh.
For while there is jealousy and strife among you, the first thing
Paul talks about, what does he say? Jealousy. What is that? Not liking that somebody has
something you don't. Not liking that somebody is what you're
not. Strife. Strife is a broad word that means
division and frustration. That's how he knew they were
infants because they were fighting. Treating each other with disdain.
If God Almighty can put Himself in the earth, in flesh, and not
fight for His own glory, so can we. And that's a work of grace. jealousy and strife among you,
or you are not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?
Are you not of the flesh and only behaving in a human way? For one says, well, I follow
Paul. And the other says, well, I follow Apollos. One says, well,
I believe this. And one says, well, I believe
that. And one says, well, I went to seminary. Well, I studied on the street. Well, I know this. Well, I know
that. Well, I don't do this. Well,
I don't do that. I mean, that's what we do. Are you not being
merely human when you divide like that? Who is Apollos? What is Paul? Slaves through
whom you believed as the Lord assigned to each. I planted,
Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who
plants nor he who waters amounts to anything, but only God gives
the growth. He who plants and he who waters
are the same thing, they are one, and each will receive his
wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers,
you are God's field, you are God's building. Verse 10, chapter
2 of 1 Corinthians, according to the grace of God given me,
like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation. He wasn't
calling himself skilled in his ability, he's already said he
wasn't. He said like, it's a simile. Like a master builder would lay
a foundation, if the foundation's not perfect, what happens to
the house? It falls apart. It literally falls apart. Like
a master builder lays a foundation, so he, as a messenger and slave
of Christ, laid the foundation. And what is the foundation? And
someone else then came along and built upon the foundation. Let each one take care of how
he builds. For no one can lay a foundation other than which
is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation
with gold or silver, precious stones, wood, hay or straw, it
will all become to be seen what it is. That's what it means to
be manifest. All your work will be seen exactly for what it is.
for the day of destruction will disclose it, because it will
be revealed by fire, and fire will test what sort of work each
one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation
survives, he receives a reward. If anyone's work is burned up,
he'll suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only
as being saved from a fire. Do you not know that you are
God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys
God's temple, God will destroy him. Why are we destroying one
another? Paul will ask later. For God's temple is set apart,
and holy, you are that temple. Let no one deceive himself. If
anyone among you thinks that he's wise in this age, let him
become a fool, that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this
world is foolish with God. For it is written, he catches
the wise in their craftiness. And again, the Lord knows the
thoughts of the wise, and they are futile, they are useless. So
let no one boast, and men, for all things are yours, whether
Paul, listen to this, all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos,
or I'll just say it, Cephas, Kepha, or the world, or life,
or death, or the present, or the future, all are yours, and
you are Christ's, and Christ is God. So all this being said,
Paul then says, this is how one should regard us, as slaves of
Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. This is the foundation
of God's grace. He reveals Himself to us and
we learn how He works. So, He tells the Philippian church,
it has been granted to you. Granted. This is a work of grace.
It's been granted to you. It's not been offered to you.
It's not been proposed. It's been granted to you that
for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in Him, but
also suffer for His sake. So grace then, as Paul is illustrating
it to Timothy, so important, and this intimate idea of mercy
which is part of grace and peace which comes from grace, means
that undeserving sinners get something else. Undeserving sinners,
what do we deserve? We deserve death and judgment
and wrath and hell and punishment. What do we get? Life. mercy and peace. Grace upon grace upon grace. John 1. So the undeserving sinners,
the elect of God, receive, obtain love They obtain the kindness
of God. They obtain the mercy of God.
They are given the peace of God. Jesus says the peace that the
world has not known. They are blessed by God, not
in a worldly way, but in an eternal and a spiritual way. We obtain
the escape of judgment, the escape of wrath, the deliverance from
judgment. We obtain life eternal. We obtain faith. We are given
adoption. We are given assurance. We are
given confidence. We are given revelation. We are
given knowledge, even though it may be progressive in our
lives. We are given understanding. We are given election. We are given predestination. We are given grace. And there's a dozen or so things
and terms that I want to talk about, but in the little bit
of time that I have left, let's just talk a minute about election,
and then we'll pick up next week. We are given, by the grace of
the Lord, an understanding of what this means, and in this
Word, and we'll talk about these in depth, next week. We could go to Ephesians chapter
1 and 2 and we could see what that looks like in the grace
of God, that God has chosen a people. And there are four ways in which
election is understood in the Scripture. First, and the election
of a nation, temporally. Israel. And then, they weren't
necessarily spiritual. Remember? And then the election of Christ
Himself. The Scripture calls Jesus Christ the elect of God.
Jesus is the true child and the true seed of Abraham. The true
promise for the children of God to be adopted by grace. Election
in the Scripture talks about those who are set apart for worship,
like Moses, as a slave in the house of God. A servant. Not
a son, Hebrews, but a slave. Prophets, kings, priests, Levites
to serve, the apostles, then pastors. We can see that in Acts.
And then we see God, according to Ephesians 1 and other places,
God's election unto glory, unto salvation, God's election unto
sanctification, being set apart, a people set apart for God who
will be like God in glory at His second coming. And we know that these truths
are all of grace. And as God's Word teaches us
about election and predestination, these are terms that often become
historical and then they start to rub against the very fabric
of the gospel in our culture. But beloved, let us be biblical. Let us be contextual. To be biblical
means it comes out of the context of Scripture, not something derived
from a small part, but something that is taught from the whole.
Theology is only learned when we are subject to its subject. And so by grace, we are one with
Christ. in all things." It means everything Christ has is ours.
Everything Christ is, is promised to us. Everything Christ promised
is guaranteed. Everything Christ accomplished
is certain. And then everything that we have
in front of us in the Word, the prophets, are ours. The apostles
are ours. The elders are ours. We are each
other's. You see the picture of the marriage?
You see why it's necessary to have a good foundation of understanding
God's redemption and separation of things in the first five chapters
of Genesis? And to quit looking at relevant
worldviews, but look at the gospel? We are justified by grace. We
are born again. We will believe the words of
God because God is gracious in all that He does. for His people,
who has granted us eternal life in Jesus Christ. By His blood,
we have been purchased. And by His mercy, we have been
given peace. And we'll pick up here again
next week. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for the
love that You have for us, Lord. Lord, for the distinctions found
in Scripture. for the truth found in Your Word,
for the assurance and the hope and the instruction that we know
that we will not escape, because You will guide us to all truth.
Lord, let us not be fearful, but let us resolve to trust in
You and rest in You. And Father, as we take the table
and continue to worship today through song, we thank You, Father,
for Your grace upon grace upon grace. And may the weight on
this sermon as we finish it next week, Father, be sufficient for
our understanding. By Your grace, in Jesus' name,
Amen.