And the rib that the Lord God
had taken from the man He made into a woman and brought her
to the man. And the man said, This at last
is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called
woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man shall
leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and
they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were
both naked and unashamed. Now we're gonna stop there, because
I'm gonna emphasize the truth of what the scripture is teaching
us here, again and again and again. The Bible tells us also,
over in chapter one, that what God has put together, no one
can separate. The two shall leave their father
and their mother and cleave together and become one flesh. Paul would
reiterate this truth in Ephesians chapter five and Colossians chapter
three. Jesus would undergird this as
a gospel picture completely in all the gospel narratives. And
so beloved, I want you to remember what it is we've learned. I want
you to remind yourself and realize what's at stake here. that God's
power is being revealed. Therefore, God is being revealed. You need to understand this about
revelation, divine revelation. Divine revelation doesn't teach
us facts. Divine revelation shows us God. I want to say that again. Divine revelation does not teach
us facts. Every mind in the world can learn
facts. Divine revelation teaches us
God. He himself alone will show us
himself. Have you ever been in a situation
where someone assumes that you mean something different than
what you're saying with your mouth? You say, this is a pencil,
and they say, I hear what you're saying, but I know what you mean.
No, I mean, this is a pencil. That's not what I think you're
saying. And that is probably for me one of the most frustrating
things that could ever take place in my life. Because my mind is
already discombobulated. The way I think and process ideas
and thoughts and words, to get the stuff to come out of my mouth
is a big task. Because it's not easy to stay
focused. And by the mercy of God alone,
I can actually read the Bible, but I did pick up the wrong set
of glasses, so when I get down to the bottom of the page, I'm
like, wait a minute, there's no progression here. See, just like
that, off the subject. Now I'm thinking about my eyes,
and I'm wondering why y'all aren't all wearing your glasses, and
I don't even know what time it is. The point being this, if
we get irritated about that, not that God becomes irritated,
but how do you think He looks at it when we twist His words?
How do you think He looks at it when we're using the Scripture to circumvent
His simple divine purposes to reveal Himself to His people
alone. How do you think God takes the
attitude of humanity to twist His Word? You're thinking, where's
the context here? We've already seen it last week in chapter
3. Did God say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? No, God did not say that. God
did not say that. But the inquiry in and of itself,
see Socrates or Plato, we don't know what Socrates thought because
part of his philosophy was not to archive what you think. It
doesn't matter. And then his students went, well,
we'll show you, na-na-na-na-boo-boo, we're gonna write everything
down. But the philosophers of the age and ages have always
come to the place of saying, What do you mean? Ask questions,
inquire, become clearer. And then we ask questions of
each other until we get to the point of being able to explain
things in a revelatory way and that's called common sense communication
that anybody with a brain cell knows how to do from birth. But
what happens when we get older? we begin to impose our concreted
ideas into our inquiry. So then we become like a detective.
And a detective isn't looking for truth. A detective's trying
to test his theories. The theory is I think you did
it, so I'm gonna ask questions to make you think I know you
did it, and if you really did do it, you're gonna break. But
we know throughout history that sometimes when people are hounded,
they break and confess of that which they did not do. It's called
terrorism. And that's what the serpent did
to Eve. He asks a question to inquire of her knowledge of God's
revelation to her and says, God, did He say you couldn't eat of
any of the trees? And she says, no. We cannot eat
of the trees in the center of the garden, nor shall we touch
it. lest we die. We die. Could you imagine parenting in
the garden if they had not fallen? And eventually Cain and Abel
would have sinned, disobeyed their parents? Probably wouldn't
have, because if I were Adam, that tree would be my power hitch. I plug it right into my parental
terrorism. You know, your mama said if you
touch that tree, you're going to die. Keep talking back. I'm going to throw
you right in it. Get close. No, I'm not kidding. I will take
you out. I mean, it would work, right?
And we do that sometimes with our children. We have this proverbial
tree of life that if we touch, they will die and we become the
executioner, the judge and the jury. But I digress to the point. is we need to be reminded that
what God has said is supreme. What God's word says in context. I wanna say this, and I'm gonna
start bouncing. This is my new composition. My
new drumbeat is going to start down this path, is that if it
is not contextually derived from a specific and myopic context
in the scripture, it is not to be burdensome on the body. Logical inference from years
of study is not divine revelation. I can make any argument work
if I have a presupposition. What does that mean? If I have
an answer that I want to get, I can make it work. Don't believe
me? I have terminal degrees in research. I promise you, I can make it
work. And for those of you who have
done masters or doctoral work, you know you can come up with
a way of finding someone to agree with your proposition. Nine out
of 10 dentists, you see, people have been doing it in marketing
for years. Beloved, the devil is the first marketer, the devil
is the first philosopher, and the devil is wiser than us all
in his cunningness. Do not think that the human mind
can stand against the prowess of that being. And do not think
the human mind can see the attack coming when the enemy dangles
that philosophical food in front of us and said, just touch it. We need to remember this. We
need to remember the thing that we're learning, which is the
sovereignty of God in salvation. This is why Genesis is written.
The creation of the world is to show us the sovereignty of
God in salvation. Not biology, not science. It's irrelevant. It is absolutely
irrelevant. I love science. I love all sorts
of sciences. I'm not saying that science is
bogus. I'm saying that the point of
the Bible is not to point us to science. The point of the
Bible is to show us God, God doing a supernatural work. The
scientific exposition according to scripture is man's philosophical
way of approaching God and a higher knowledge, nothing but Gnosticism,
if I could say it that way, without the spark or without the power. But beloved, we've learned the
point of this letter and these passages is that we see creation
to show us God's sovereignty. That God said, let there be,
and there was, and it was good because He declared it good,
because it was established for His purposes, and these purposes
were for His glory to be revealed. That's what God's glory, the
word glory means to be seen as you are. Glory. We have seen all that
God is in the face of Christ. What is the very title, the very
word, Messiah, Christ, Christos, is the Holy and Anointed One
of God, who will save His people from their sins, which we've
seen promised, not only in the power of creation, that God Himself
will separate light from darkness and call it good, not only in
the creation of humanity, that He would create beings after
His own image to point to the true God-man who is the only
image of God in the flesh. And then also to show that creation
in and of itself with the highest of intellect. There was no man
with a greater brain than Adam. No woman who was more intellectually
acute than Eve. Yet we somewhat sort them into
this caveman like mindset. These dumb idiots couldn't even
stop eating fruit. Beloved, if God were to bring
us into existence today in the world as He did Adam from the
dust of the earth, we'd bite His hand when He breathes into
us the breath of life. Like a rabid cat. But even in all of the greatest
intellect, with the purest DNA ever existing in the world, the
creature will always fall prey to its fleshly desires when tempted. And when those temptations fall
into practice, sin brings forth death. And death is separation. Separation
from righteousness, separation from Life. Separation from God. Separation from God's promises. The Garden of Eden is a picture
of promises. Picture of provision. Separation
from blessings. Separation from one another. Separation from hope. Separation
from trust. Separation from peace. Separation
from innocence. Separation from unashamedness. Now they're naked and they're
ashamed. They're scared. Beloved, what God has put together,
no man shall separate. No man shall separate. But we
as creatures have been in the separating business from the
beginning. So the temporal picture of creation
in and of itself, the very existence of the infinite universe, don't
go there. I've spent a lot of time bogged
down into, you ever rub your eyes so hard you see things?
That's how my brain looks sometimes. I'm looking. I see colors. Not
in a good way. It hurts. Your brain hurts when you contemplate
things you're not supposed to touch. Because there's no fathomable
way to process that which is infinite. There's no way to process that
in a logical way. The untouchable glory of the
ineffable God who said, let there be and all things were. And I
want to measure it all. I want to check the plumb lines
in every corner. I want to see and I want to behold. But beloved, I behold greater
than that by seeing the gospel. by seeing the creation of the
world, by seeing the promises of God to provide for His people
life eternal through His power, not through ours. The creature
separates themselves from God and it was His purpose to show
the fragility and the impossibility of what man could not do. And He showed this in marriage. And He says that what God has
put together no man can take apart. God created the man and
out of the man He created the woman. And beloved, He said it
was good. He said it was good. And at the end of all of it,
at the end of the very first breath, God clothed them. in grace. Now I want you to see
that in a figurative way. God doesn't have grace tangibly. Grace is not power. Grace is
not substance. Grace is not a thing. Grace is
the actions of God to His people for their redemption in spite
of them. Unmerited life. Unmerited blessing. Unmerited love. Unmerited favor. Unmerited power. Unmerited purpose. Unmerited provision. And it goes
on and on and on. The grace of God. God, by grace, drove them out
of the garden. God, by grace, put them in the
garden. God, by grace, gave them all the trees to eat. God, by
grace, instructed them to work the garden, to tend it, to worship
in it. But all of these things were
temporary pictures. Don't forget, we've talked about
how we go back to Eden. We're still in our flesh trying
to find our way back in. And there is no way back in,
for Eden is no longer. It was just a shadow. Creation
is not eternal. It is just a shadow. Marriage
is not eternal. It is just a shadow. But what
is eternal? What is eternal in this life?
Christ and all who are in Him. So beloved, if we sit together
this day in the assembly of these chairs, and we are indeed in Christ,
found, submerged into the Spirit of God. We are the eternal family. To which our lives and our marriages
and our relationships and our homes are to prepare us to understand
that we are the building blocks for the eternal picture, but
these things are not eternal. Marriage. Small, temporary, shadow
to be seen with eyes of glorious perfection as a picture of the
eternal promises of God. Think about it. Our family by
blood is not as significant as the body of Christ. Yet our family by blood is our
first responsibility unto the eternal relationships of the
body of Christ. Isn't that something? A man who hates his flesh is
odd. But he tends to his flesh, he
feeds his flesh, he bathes his flesh, he grooms his flesh. As
he should see his wife as his own flesh, he should take care
of her. Christ says Christ loved the
church, the assembly, the gathered ones, the body as Himself and
He gave Himself as a ransom for them that He might present them
blameless. Who were we in the context of
Christ's death? in the reality of our flesh.
We were creatures rebelling, hating, finding our way into
life, preparing our own clothing, thinking that we could present
ourselves to God in such a way that what? That He would be pleased. Trying, not even haughtily. Very
few people are haughty in their self-righteousness. They're very
humble. They're very broken. Oh, I'm
such a sinner. I'm going to do better. I'm going
to strive. I'm going to march. I'm going to give. I'm going
to sacrifice my all. And God will not accept us as
sacrifices. Except under the altar of wrath,
which we shall burn forever. For it shall never be able to
satisfy wrath. Christ satisfied wrath in His
death. So, our most intimate relationships
in life, the marriage, our children, our relatives, and each other, display a picture of the intimacy
of God with His people. See, our culture says that church
is a place you attend. That's a lie from hell. And I
know that that's not logistically true, but it is a lie from the
enemy. Some people say, well, I go to
this church or I attend this church. No, that's just a practical
way that we express ourselves. But if it is the undercurrent
of our theology, if it is the undercurrent of our understanding,
of our beliefs, we missed the point. We missed the point, we missed
the gospel. And beloved, this is the first
thing that happens to me. Life gets hard. We miss the gospel. And we become selfish gospel.
Well, at least I'm in Christ. Praise the Lord. It's never to mock praising the
Lord, but beloved, that's platitudes. I'll serve you, Lord. I'll pray
for you. I'll pray, Lord. I'll pray for
those poor sinners. See, that's not the attitude
of someone who sits in the centrality of grace. That's the attitude
of the flesh that's tempted. We should consider ourselves
as lesser than each other. Our needs as less important than
the needs of those sitting around us. Our desires as less necessary
than those sitting around us. Our stuff and our lives as opportunities
to give away and to die and to be poured out for those sitting
around us. That is when we know we are looking
at the picture of the temporal world and all of its purposes
to point to the eternal power of God and redemption when the
gospel sits forefront in our head. We see it that way. And
beloved, it is the hardest thing to see. We get it in marriage in our
culture because we become extremely jealous and possessive in marriage. And then sometimes in marriage
we feel justified in our haughtiness toward our spouses because of
the way they act, the way they speak, and the way they do, and
vice versa. And so back to the point I'm
trying to make is that what was our position in Christ, in our
flesh? And don't pick apart my words.
You want to be a philosopher? Move on down the road. I'm done
with that. You know the gospel I preach,
and if you charge me with a false gospel, you're a liar. You are
a liar, a liar. And that's not for you, but that's
for others who will listen to this next week. Beloved, there's only one truth.
while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That's the
answer to that question. While we were enemies, God reconciled
us to Himself in Christ. We weren't lining up for a shower.
We weren't knocking on the door of the temple of grace going,
okay, I'm ready to be cleaned. As a matter of fact, the disciples
with Jesus refused to let Him wash their stinky feet, much
less cleanse them from all their wickedness. And Jesus says, if
I don't wash you, you have no place with Me. You can't be my
bride if you nasty. You see? I'm not taking you into
my daddy's house and say, look what I'm marrying. Boy, you better
brush that girl's teeth. That's not the way it works.
You gotta be clean. And so if we were sinners while
Christ died for us with His mouth shut, doing the will of God the
Father for the sake of His own name, then we too in our relationships
and our marriages, specifically, should learn that we die for
one another by laying it down. Now, the good news is this. That's
the command. That's the call. That's the goal. We're never going to reach it.
It doesn't mean we don't strive for it and work toward it, but
every day we try and we try in our power, we fail, we fall on
our face. And so we do by faith what God
has done in Christ. A little bit here and a little
bit there. A whole lot of failure, a whole lot of thankfulness.
Thank you God you're not going to judge me for the husband that
I am. Thank you, God, that my righteousness
is not established by the father that I am. Thank you, God, that
you're not going to give me crowns based on the pastor that I am,
or the teacher that I am, or the friend that I am, or the
brother that I am, or the uncle that I am. Oh, now, the grandfather
that I am. I mean, thank God. That's so weird to me. Thank
God that my righteousness in all of it forever has always
been and will only always be Christ's righteousness. That's
why it's called the good report, beloved. The good news, the gospel. Because it would be a bad report
if it were up to us. Creatures separate. And even
in the temporary, in the garden, when everything was perfect,
we could not keep ourselves in Christ. and even in the gospel
picture of marriage. Treat your wives like this. Treat
your husbands like this. Let no man separate. It's like
a bomb. It's like we just get put in
a blender and then some napalm gets in there and somebody smokes.
Quit smoking around napalm. It blows up. This is not good. But that's the world that we
live in. That's the flesh. We burn things down. We destroy
things. We separate ourselves in our
flesh because we are tempted to do so. And only by the power
of God does He keep us in His love. Does He keep us in the
gospel? Does He keep us together? But
it doesn't mean that we don't have the inclination to always
destroy everything God has called us to. That is our natural bend. And when I say that, some people
think, well, I'm just not that violent. You don't have to be
violent to destroy stuff. I've seen very dainty, elegant
ladies take out a letter and fold it very neatly and place
it in the trash. I'm not reading that. You see,
that's destructive. God bless your soul. I'll pray
for you. I mean, you know, we know what's
behind some of those comments. It's not endearing. God has put together creation.
God has separated creation in the way that it is good. God
has promised light shall rule the day and the night. God has
given His Son Jesus Christ for the sake of His people. Marriage
is the same thing. Let no man separate what God
has put together. Yet this, as creation, as the
Garden of Eden, as the Temple, as the people of Israel, all
these separations to show the Gospel, all these separations
to show God's provision, all came with commands to do things
according to the righteousness of God, of which man has never
succeeded in doing, nor could they succeed in doing, so that
all the time God's people, by divine work, would see that our
only hope is the righteousness of God and Christ. And the reason
we see that is because we have been born again. We don't come
to our senses and then God says, well, praise the Lord! Praise
me! I'm glad you showed up and finally came to your senses.
No, we come to our senses when He slaps us upside the head with
His love. Boy, if you don't get yourself
straight. See, that's what our parents say. And sometimes as
children, we go, what am I doing? What am I doing? Remember one time at Levi's house
when we were little, and we were running and doing just like y'all's
children do here, running and doing. We run and do, that's
what children do. We break walls and furnitures and faces and
arms. And stepfather says, James, come
here. I knew I was in trouble. He says, turn around so I can
do a 360. He goes, turn around, so I do
a 360. It's literally what he said to
do. He says, the other way. So I
went the other way, 360. And now he was upset. He says, look that way. So I
did like this. What he wanted me to do is turn
around the other direction so he could pop me real good on
the butt and say, slow down, boy. But by the time we got to
that, he was furious because he thought I just didn't understand.
In my best attempts, I couldn't even look the right direction. But God is not furious with us.
Because He's not waiting on us to get the directions correct.
He got it right before He ever said, let there be. And He placed
us in Christ before we ever were in His plan and His purpose and
His power. And then in time, He finally
sent the Lord Jesus, and the Lord Jesus died, satisfied all
justice and righteousness. And then now and forevermore,
the people of Christ will trust in Him because we have been born
of God. We have been recreated. We're
not remaining in our state of self-sufficiency. We are being
given unto Christ divinely working in us faith because Jesus gave
himself and purchased us. And marriage is a picture of
that, is first in life as a promise, as a covenant, as a picture,
as a presentation of our relationship forever in Christ. So as important
as marriage is, so the church is, so gospel faith is. And this is why we assemble as
one body every week as often as we're able. And this is why
the Word gives us clarity on the glorious redemption of our
lives. And this is why the Word gives
us instruction on reconciliation at all costs. Because Jesus purchased
us. And beloved, we are about the
business of destroying that, even today as God's people. Unknowing
to us, we destroy that picture. We destroy that power. We mock
it, sort of. But this sermon is not about
us getting straight and putting down our mocking and stopping
the destruction. Beloved, our flesh is going to
wake up today feeling good and tomorrow feeling angry. We're
going to have health tonight and tomorrow morning sick to
our stomachs. We're going to have Jesus on the brain at lunch
and then when we get to McDonald's or wherever it is we're eating,
we're going to hate the guy at the window. And our perfection is only given
to us through the credit to our account. Imputation is the word
for that, because Jesus himself is perfect and righteous, and
his righteousness is ours. Jesus cannot fail. That's the
point of this message. There are three specific points. And Jesus cannot fail. And just
as marriage is to be held in high honor, so the body of Christ
should be held in high honor. So the power of the gospel should
be held in high honor. So that Christ should be held
in high honor. Because if we diminish any of those, we are literally
diminishing Christ. I'm gonna say that again. When
we diminish any divinely purposed and created institution, in any
way, we diminish Christ. When we diminish the least of
these of our brothers, we actually push Christ off a cliff. We're
no more, we're as equally as guilty as the Jews in the Gospels
who decided to push him off the cliff when he was preaching about
Jubilee and Redemption. And they said, praise you, praise
you, praise you, for you preach peace. And he says, us not for
you. And they tried to kill him. So let us not tear down what
God has built. And the purpose of this sermon
is to give us joy. To know that even though in our
flesh we are always, even inadvertently and unknowingly, trying to tear
apart what God has built, God will not let us tear apart what
He has built. He will not let us be separated from Him. Romans
8, Paul is clear when he closes that text. It's almost just crazy
to even say, Romans 8. You know, Romans. Paul teaches
in Romans. And one of the main things he
establishes there is that nothing can separate us from the love
of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing. God Himself
cannot separate us from Himself because He has brought us unto
Himself and purchased us with the blood of Christ. Wrath is
satisfied. Justice prevails. Grace is effectual. God's mercy
upon us in Christ Jesus is the power of God unto salvation.
of which we are not ashamed, let us stand and not be ashamed.
So point one that we need to remember today is that God alone
has the power to save. God alone has the power to bring
together that which is separated. Only God has the power to keep
it. But the stress comes for me is that throughout my entire
life in ministry, not my entire life, but my entire life in ministry,
working with other people who profess to be believers, it's
amazing to me is how much In times of stress, people throw
away the Word of God. Be it by the Spirit of God and
His grace alone, in the hardest times of my life, it is me and
the Scripture alone that God brings to the table of reconciliation. Because I can think, and I can
ponder, and I can examine, and I can espouse, and opine, and
everything else. I can write poetry that never
makes sense, and think it's good. But yet all explanatory power,
all revelatory power belongs to the simple revelation of God
through Scripture. If we want to understand life
and understand things, we have to remember that God alone has
the power to reveal. God alone has the power to teach.
But see, sometimes we think, well, Lord, I pray you teach
so-and-so this, this, this, this, and this, and what we're asking
Him to teach them is wrong. It happens. Well, teach these
people that, you know, mitochondria, blah, blah. That's
wrong. Teach these people this. How
about teach them truth? How about teach me truth? Lord,
show me truth. Show me wisdom. And the wisdom
comes back to the Gospel. What God has put together, nobody
can separate. No man has the power to separate. Even ourselves, we cannot tear
ourselves away from the grace of God. It is a finished work. And I think we have to work out
differences and work out misunderstandings and work out ignorance and work
out haughtiness and work out sin and work out all this tearing
up as the Scripture shows us. We have to work out these things
in harmony with God and walk accordingly, rejoicing in the
truth. Because that's the whole purpose of the New Testament
is that we learn to walk accordingly in the truth by faith. That we
don't tear down what God has established. I love how people blame God for
tearing up what He made. I mean, you think about the knuckle-headed
churches by the end of that century, where John was writing to them,
and the pain that they went through. Pain. We got it made, folks. You think you're being persecuted
in the United States? Come on. There is no persecution here. None. Well, I've got a family
member. I don't matter. That's not persecution.
It's hard. It's not persecution. Persecution
is an act of evil that belligerently attacks in order to destroy you
physically. I don't see that. I see high
tolerance except for, you know, the semi-bougie evangelical idealism
that doesn't work. You got to have the right purse,
the right shoes, the right car, the right sticker on the back of
it, and the right translation of the Bible, be in the right
church, then you're good. That's culture club, not the band. And that's just what that is.
It's not persecution. That's just, that's office politics
on a larger scale, that's all it is. We've got it made, beloved. At
first entry in church, John threw, Jesus was writing to the churches,
John was writing this stuff down, and Jesus was gonna separate
the church from their effectiveness, wasn't he? He said, I'm gonna
take your lamp out, why? Because they've forsaken their
first love. They put doctrine, and piety and presentation and
public display before each other. And it's not a one or the other,
it's a both and. It's important, but we don't
not water the children and just feed them. Without water, even with food,
you will be sick and die. We have to be about the business
that God has put us in. And sometimes the alarms of our
flesh go off, and we seek our own way of understanding, and
we just start sowing our own fig leaves. And they go, no,
no, no, no, God doesn't allow fig leaves. Animal skins. So
we start killing animals. We start clothing ourselves in
law. We start clothing ourselves in
judgment. We start clothing ourselves in distinctions. We start clothing
ourselves in cultural distinctions and theological distinctions.
We start labeling ourselves and clothing ourselves with theological
labels. And all of that is wickedness.
It's all wickedness. We clothe ourselves in history.
We clothe ourselves in proximity of others who we know dress like
we do. And the next thing we know, we're
back in an Eden that's not an Eden, it's actually a death chamber. And all of them yield in death.
But grace alone and God's resting power provides truth against
all of our senses and our non-senses. But these alarms that go off
in my brain, what are they? What are they? They're fleshly
fears. That's not discernment. That's not spiritual. Alarms. They ring inside my head and
they drown out the peace of Christ. Oh no, somebody's upset. Oh no,
somebody's... Oh goodness, what the... That's where I live. That's sin. It is wickedness. Assumption
is wicked. Judgmentalism is wicked. Oh Lord,
I'm going to get this right one day and you're going to be pleased.
And what would the Lord say if He heard me say that? Not a chance. And what? Getting it right? That
or me being pleased with you. I'm pleased with you because
my Son's righteousness is upon you. Because I dressed you, boy,
and I don't want all this nonsense you're trying to put on top of
my clothes, but that don't match. And you look foolish. You cannot
wear that hat to church, son. You know, the big hats at the
ballgames. Can you imagine if I had one
on right now? Pop culture. It's funny. Big hat. How do we deal with this? Our
flesh will call these distractions spiritual sometimes. And then
we'll find proof text in the Bible what God did not really
say. And then the next thing we know we're living in a place
of turmoil which is not a promise of God in the Spirit. We want
peace. Peace is found in Christ. So
we trust in His Word and we hope in His promises. But I was thinking
about it the other day, but I have liberty, I have the freedom.
And then it came to me, freedoms, D-U-M-B-S. Some of you saw that
on social media. My freedoms, though. I've got
freedoms. That's exactly what they are.
Dumb ideas about our liberty and will that oppose Christ and
oppose Christ's people. You realize that some of our
liberties actually cause our brothers and sisters to have
grief in their hearts, to lose their peace, to lose their focus
on the gospel. And we think, yeah, but I'm right.
I don't care. I don't want to be right. I want to stand in
righteousness. Because me being right, logically,
spiritually, biblically, a lot of times is really fleshly. When
I'm doing it at the cost of unity in the truth of Christ alone.
And beloved, you can put whatever you want. I mean, there's the
bowl. You just throw in it whatever is going on in your life. Whether
you're scared of masks, or scared of vax, or scared of people who
wear both. or the opposite, or the government. Well, I'm not
scared of any of that. That is so far down on my list
of problems. What is that song, I Got 99 Problems?
I don't know anything about it, but I know this, 98 of them are
my own problem. I'm the problem. If you got a
million problems, all of them are you, most of the time. That's
what happens. But there's only one solution.
There's only one solution. and that is to rest in the Gospel. And in doing that, we are trusting
in the promises of God, who He is, what He has done. But we're
very quick to join the band of unbelief on principle, on matters
of life. And beloved, we don't need to
join the band of anything on principle. We need to continue
to sit in the chorus of hallelujahs, the chorus of praise, to sit
in the choir of the celestial, To worship Christ and not sing
the song of the world. There's a pun in that. Man cannot
repair himself unto God. God alone by His power with no
help from His creatures. And from this we get assurance
and perseverance. The first thing I was teaching there is that
God alone can do it. The second thing is that from God alone
do we get assurance. God says, no man can separate.
We've seen it. We've seen Him do it all. We've
seen Him make the promise in the fall. Everything. Everything. Christ is preeminent. He's first
and last and all in between. God has promised to save His
people. And in chapter 4, when we get there in a couple of weeks
in Genesis, you'll see that the first children are about the
same business that their parents were in. Making much to do about what
God has said, and then showing how God separates them in His business, for His purpose. Same picture, different circumstances. So we have assurance. Sometimes
we like to tear down gospel assurance. Why do we do that? Because we
want to put ourselves at the center of it. Well, I know that
I'm probably not saved because... And then we give this laundry
list of reasons why we think we're lost. And that's what we
do. And then we have others. Sometimes
we do it to others, right? Well, you're probably not. Are
you sure you're born again? I remember meeting a man one
time about four years ago. It was introduced to him by a
mutual friend. And the first thing out of his mouth was for
me to give him a gospel testimony. We'll just leave it at that.
And it wasn't a gospel testimony as in, share with me how the
Lord saved you, etc., etc., etc. It was, are you sure that you're
in Christ today? I'm like, absolutely. And then he goes on to talk about
this and talk about that and ask questions. And he says, well,
I'm not so sure that someone who was in Christ would wear
that, you know. You think it's absurd, but that's
exactly how we do. I'm not sure someone who's in
Christ could say that. I'm not sure someone who's in
Christ would think that. I'm not sure someone in Christ
would look at that. That could be things that we
have freedoms to do. It could be things that we believe,
things that we think. You know, we often think about
a lot of stuff, but it doesn't mean that we trust in it. Sometimes
we can think about things and dialogue with ourselves and others
about things that just come to mind, but then we come back to
what we trust in and it circumvents that. And then sometimes we think
we trust in the things of God even, but yet everything that
we think about everything that's going on is not showing that
we trust in God. Are we lost then? No. Because
our lostness and foundness is not about us banging on the door
of the courts of grace. Our lostness and foundness is
about God's Word finding us and showing us Himself. The finished
work of Jesus Christ. Knowing that His people are certainly
assured of salvation. Beloved, let's not tear down
what God has done by causing others to doubt Christ. How do you know that's happening?
I see it. I hear people say, well, I'm
not sure I'm elect. What do I have to do? Well, there's no good
news in the answer to that question, man. Because it's about you, right?
Has God given you rest in the report of His Son who saved His
people from their sins? You don't figure out where you
sit. You rest where Christ hanged. And though it was an earthly
court, though it was an innocence, though it was an acquittal, He
still died. Because the ultimate court that
was satisfied that day on Galgatha was the court of heaven. The
court of righteousness. The court of true justice. with
which man's legal system has never, ever satisfied. But beloved, we have assurance. We have assurance. In Revelation 12, we hear John
write these things. And I heard a loud voice in heaven. And it said, Now the salvation
and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority
of His Christ have come. For the accuser of our brothers
has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our
God. Why is it that our assurance
is such a wreck? Ephesians 6 says that we are
fighting against the principalities of darkness. That there is a
serpent in the ethereal realm that dangles all sorts of doodads
in front of us. All sorts of doubtful things.
Did God really say you were saved? Did God really say Christ's sufficiency
is enough for you? Did God really give you faith? So on and so forth. And then what happens? That comes
from the inside and then all of a sudden somebody else comes
along being led by the same spirit. You've been thinking about this
lately? You've been wondering about this lately? Beloved, that's
tearing down what God has done. This isn't spiritual conviction.
This is fleshly disaster. The saints gather, not so that
we can be convicted to think we're lost, but so that we can
be reassured that we've been found. Because otherwise, I don't want
to gather together in a death session of depression. I don't
want to sing. There's no call for us to sing
laments. Let our tears be turned to joy. Let us do what's necessary to
fix whatever is happening in our lives. But let's not let
the reconciliation of those things, let's not let our joy be contingent
upon the reconciliation of those things. I know it's hard right
now. It's hard for everybody. But
beloved, our joy is in Christ. We have assurance. tells in Mark
10 and in Luke's Gospel about the rich young ruler. It's recorded
there. And he tells the disciples that
it's easier to shove a camel, a full-grown camel, into the
eye of a sewing needle That is literally what the Bible says.
It is not a metaphor in the sense of meaning something else. It's
not alluding to any specific place called the needle where
the camel has to squirm through. This is a needle that you would
sew your sock with and an animal that would fill the stage. It
is easier, Jesus says, to shove that camel through that sewing
needle than it is for one who trusts in himself to get to heaven. and the disciples ask a question,
then who can be saved? Who's going to get there? If
this rich young ruler with all his pieties is not going to get
there, if the Pharisees are not going to get there, if the Jews
are not going to get there, if all of the worshipers are not
going to get there, if Abraham couldn't get there, who's going
to get there? He says what is impossible with
man, is possible with God, for all things are possible with
God. That's assurance, beloved. You've
heard me say this a lot, but faith is not a substance. Faith
is not a thing in and of itself. It looks, and it sees, and it
rests in what it sees, sees and rests in peace, and it has hope
in what it sees. Faith does not save us. Christ
saves us. Faith is knowing Christ saves
us. Assurance is knowing Christ as
revealed in Scripture as Savior. And this assurance happens in
the mind. And it happens in truth. and the rest given by the Spirit
because of the new birth. And assurance is confidence,
but as Paul would tell to the Hebrews, the true assurance of
the believer is confidence, not of the flesh, but confidence
of the flesh of Jesus Christ satisfying the wrath of God for
His people. So true, confident assurance
in the mind is firmly planted on the promises of God. So what
God has put together in grace and power and mercy and love,
let no man tear apart because we can't. We can never tear ourselves
apart. When we attempt to tear these things apart, we cause
doubt in the gospel truths, doubt for the promises of God, doubt
in the power of God. We cause doubt in the provision
of God. We cause others to doubt these
things. And this must not be. And when
we do these things, the effects of these things create new laws
for us to live by. Create self-righteousness. Create
fear. Create confusion. Create divorce
amongst the church. Create lies and burdens, undue
burdens. And it undoes what the Spirit
is doing by the temptation of the flesh in the mind of the
believers. Don't believe me? Look at Galatians. Look at the Thessalonians. The Judaizers went into Galatia,
and the Galatians were saved, they were regenerate, they believed
the gospel, and the Judaizers were like, yeah, you believe
the gospel, but have you been circumcised? Do you not understand
the distinction of circumcision and the mark and what it means?
Do you not understand what the law showed and how it points
to Christ? If you're not understanding this, you're not in Christ. And
it caused confusion. It caused fear. It caused heartache. Paul was not. He didn't beat
around the bush. He got right in there. And then
all of a sudden in Galatia, there were conditions for fellowship
that weren't the gospel. Distinctions. Same thing in Colossae. Same thing in Thessalonica. Well,
you know, you miss the rapture. That's a joke. You miss the second
coming. You miss this, you miss that.
You miss the resurrection. And so a lot of the church were
sitting on their hands looking at the sky going, what purpose
is it? Being lazy. causing problems
in the church because the needs of the church weren't getting
met because people were so uptight about this doctrine that they
were falling for, this idea and these conditions that they were
falling for, and nobody was being served, and the Lord was being
ignored and mocked by their laziness, by their spiritual superiority
in the name of discernment, they were actually being disobedient. And so Paul said, if these men
come to the assembly for their weekly food, let them starve. Because if they're not serving
the body, they're not serving me. If they're not serving me,
I'm not giving them anything. Isn't that the way it works? That's the way it works. Why? Because beloved, the assurance
of the church is important. I would say that assurance is
the centerpiece of the flow of the river of existence as the
body of Christ. We gather together so that we
may be reassured each time that we may do what? Why do we come
to the assembly? Okay, we got all the good Sunday
School answers to praise the Lord, to glorify His name, come
on. What's the Bible teach us? To the praise of His glorious
grace, how? That we may do the work of the ministry and serve
one another without fail in spite of each other's sin and differences. We do what we're called to do,
period. If we don't, we're putting on
fig leaves. We're creating the idea that other people must also
do the same. We're not holding marriage in
high honor. We're not holding the body in high honor. Therefore,
we're not holding Christ in high honor. And the list goes on down
the road. But by the mercy of God, our assurance is not found
in the fact that we are doing it right. Our assurance is found
in the fact that God has accomplished it righteously in Christ Jesus. So therefore, we are not working
out of fear, we are working out of gratitude. We are living out
of praise to His glorious grace. How dare we say we're saved by
grace when we sit on our butts and not worship in ministry by
grace. It should not be. That's what
Paul says. These things should not be. Should not be named among
you. Don't call yourself Christ's. When we, what? Destroy the assurance
of one another. Because even the body of Christ
are called to serve their enemies. Wow, much less should we be serving
our brothers. Third point, the final thing
we talk about today is that through all of this, beloved, our assurance
will wane. Our assurance will wane. And
the reason that it wanes is because we're just like Adam and Eve.
We're looking for ways of maintaining our understanding of God. And
we've been revealed the simplicity of grace, but yet we still want
to make more of it. Make more of it. We want to make
it an academic or an intellectual reality that unless these things
are evident in our comprehension to a certain degree, then I'm probably not in Christ. Well, your assurance is in you
if that's what you think. Not in Christ. Yeah, but you're
talking too simplistically. No, I'm not. If you don't like
that gospel, toodaloo! Because you can't fellowship
with Christ. You see? You can't fellowship with Christ
without simple grace. You can't fellowship with Christ
if He hasn't washed us. If He hasn't presented us, if
He hadn't closed us and brought us into His Father's house, present
us as a bride, ready to go. You can't fellowship. That's
the simplicity of it. As we grow in our understanding,
God will give us the reality of what the Scripture teaches,
and we will understand things more and more and more, but those
understandings will never supersede the simplicity of grace. that
it's by mercy alone that we even stand with the faintest knowledge
of what Christ has done for us. And beloved, that is what's beautiful
about this last point, is that God alone will keep us. He will
preserve us. And it doesn't matter how good
or bad or how well or poorly we live this life or how well
we do as a church or as a family or as a parent or a husband or
a wife or etc. It doesn't matter in the end
because God will keep us. It does matter in the context
of our worship and our joy. But it's not going to make or
break God's purposes and promises. We will persevere. In the faith,
in the truth. Jesus says in John chapter 6, even when we find ourselves tearing
everything down, and we get through it all and we go, look what a
mess I've made. God says, turn around and we're spinning. He
just wants us to look at what mess we've made. So that we can
turn around and look at Him, and He can say, I've made all
things new. See what happens when you do
your own deal? My promises are still standing. Your provisions
are falling apart. In John 6, 35, Jesus says, I
am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not
hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But
I say to you that you have seen me, and yet you do not believe.
All the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes
to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven
not to do My own will, but the will of the One who sent Me.
And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I should lose nothing
of all that He has given Me, but I will raise it up on the
last day. For this is the will of My Father,
that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should
have eternal life, and I will raise Him up on the last day."
I don't have time to preach that because it would take an hour. But you know what it says. These people were here for the
feast and Jesus said He was the bread. And Jesus says that the Father
will give Him His people and He will satisfy their hunger
and their thirst. Jesus said that He will raise them up on
the last day. That is the presentation of the
church without blemish, without spot, and without wrinkle. And nothing can take it away.
So in the worst of your days, when you are ranting on the inside,
when you are raging on the outside, when everything spiritual seems
to have been washed off of you by a fire hose, the Spirit of
God will subtly remind you of this truth. You will not be lost. Because
you cannot be lost. Beloved, let us relate to the
Lord in that promise. And let us relate to one another
in that power. And let us take our relationships
outside the church into even the world with that absolute
solidarity. That we would not be shaken by
the way this world is going right now. There's so much that could
knock us off our focus, but nothing can knock us out of the hands
of our Savior. Let's pray. We thank You, Lord,
for Your sovereign grace, free and powerful. And thank You,
Father, for using my mouth to teach, but Lord, as we all know,
It is always prone to error. It is always prone to misunderstanding. It is always prone to mistake. So I thank You, Father, for being
gracious to teach us, to show us, to correct us, and to train
us in ways that only You can do. Lord, may we be patient in
trial. May we be wise in misunderstandings. Lord, help us to stand firm in
temptation, Lord, and help us to be immovable in the shakiness
of this world. And Father, there are relationships
in this body that need great power and healing. Father, I
pray that by the gospel you would show and bring reconciliation
there. Lord, there are people in this
body who are scared and fearful of things outside of their control.
Lord, give us the peace that surpasses that understanding.
Father, there are those who are hurt, those who are ill, those
who are depressed, those who are addicted, those who are angry,
those who are uncertain. So Father, together, as You have
equipped the church, Lord, help us to be gospel bringers, gospel
bearers, and peace speakers to one another. That when we begin
to sort through our faith, and we find that it is inflecting
upon our own ability, Lord, that you would cause each other to
just remind one another about your sufficiency, that you alone
can bring life and keep life, and you alone can grant the faith
of that life you have accomplished in Christ. In His name we pray. Amen. Thank you, church.