...last week, 2 John, and we
are going to continue last week's sermon. I don't think I got anywhere
near finished, so that's where we are this morning. As we continue in this letter,
I just want to remind us, as I do every week, of its purpose,
of its occasion, of its message. John is writing this short note
to the body of Christ. And he's writing this note because
there are those antichrists, those people who teach a different
Christ, those people who revise the person of Christ, those people
who change the message of Christ, and they are troubling the church.
They are troubling the saints. And the saints so took to heart,
as they should have, the instruction to love one another, that they
are troubled. Okay, now we're supposed to love
people, we're supposed to be kind, we're supposed to be generous,
we're supposed to be hospitable. So now we have these antichrists
who are coming back into our lives, who are wanting an audience
with the assembly, who want to come into the house, quote of
God, and to teach their garbage, to teach their lives, to teach
their revisions. And John is saying, no, not only
should you not welcome them, but don't support them. Don't
do anything because if you support them in any way, if you give
them a platform, you are guilty of purveying their message. You're
not condemned. You're not lost. You're guilty. It's like the getaway driver
who didn't know it was a robbery. Well, you know now. And so with
this message, there's a lot of things in this little letter
that have to be understood. Now somebody asked me this week,
who can God not save? Who can Christ not save? And
that is one of the most loaded questions that I've ever been
asked. Because no matter what I say, I'm wrong. I would say
Christ cannot save the reprobate, those who will not believe, those
for whom he did not die. Because then they say, oh, you're
saying Christ is powerless to save. You see? Well, Christ can
save anyone. He can save anyone he chooses
to save, which is a right answer. Then, oh, so he died for everybody. The universalist wins. You can't win. And I'm not God,
and I'm not wise enough to know how to fight these arguments.
But Christ, we're constantly inundated with these types of
arguments. And beloved, here's where I want to, I don't wanna
repeat last week's sermon, I just wanna pick up and just go here.
We need to look at what is in view here when it says, let's
hear the word, starting in verse four of 2 John. I've rejoiced greatly to find
some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were
commanded by the Father. Now what does that command? To
love one another. And now I ask you, dear lady, not as though
I were writing to you a new commandment, but the one that we had from
the beginning, that we love one another, and this is love, that
we walk according to His commandments. And this is the commandment,
just as you have heard it from the beginning, so that you should
walk in it. He's given it already. He's saying,
and this is what I just said, is the commandments you should
walk. I want you to walk in love. I want you to walk in intimacy.
I want you to walk in sacrifice. I want you to walk in honorable
way. I want you to live a life of
righteousness, though it is not your righteousness. Christ is
your righteousness. I want you to put away slander.
I want you to put away course teaching. I want you to put away
sexual immorality. I want you to put away envy and strife and
greed. I want you to put all these things
away. Not because I'm gonna get you if you don't. It's because
I gave you my son and he satisfied my wrath for you. So why in the
world would you want to walk in a manner that Christ died
for? You see? It's a huge difference. Beloved,
it is the difference between life and death. There's a difference
between true good news and a lie. walk in the law of Christ, the
love that we have for one another. Four many deceivers have gone
out into the world. They're evangelizing. That's
what we talked about last week. That gone out into the world
means that they're going to preach their message into the world.
They already left the church, 1 John. They have gone out from
us. Now where do they go? Out into
the world. They're evangelizing. Beloved,
think of missions. Antichrists are missionaries. Antichrists are evangelists.
Antichrists are pastors. Antichrists are theologians.
Antichrists are armchair theologians. And they're in abundance. They're
in abundance. They've gone out into the world
and these, specifically in this context, are those who have not
told the truth about the coming in the flesh of Jesus Christ.
They're saying that he wasn't incarnate. They're saying that
he wasn't both God and man truly. And I know we love this historically
fully, God and man. Better term would be truly. He
is truly God, He is truly man at the same time. Two natures.
Those who do not confess this, those do not confess that He
is a person of the Trinity, those who do not confess that He is
from the Father, distinct from the Father as God, whom God is
also the Father, they are lying about Christ and they are anti-Christ
because they are what? Against the truth of Christ.
And it's interesting that John emphasizes Christ. Christ is
not His name. You realize that. He is the Christ. The other word for that is Messiah.
He is the one anointed, set apart from God. That's what that means. He is the one anointed, set apart
from God. Messiah. And the story that Adam
was given, the story that Eve heard, the promise and the proclamation
from the Son of God Himself walking on the earth with them in the
garden, when He says to them, I will crush the head of the
serpent, God says to them, through the seed of the woman, period,
Christ has established a different kingdom, not the world, not the
kingdom of man. See, we're so convoluted with
our understanding of the simple grace of the Lord. We're so convoluted
in our understanding because of culture and history and just
proximity to so many things that we don't understand covenant.
We think that God tried to save Adam and Eve before the fall,
that he offered them some type of hope and that they messed
it up. The truth is this, is that even in a innocent state
without a depraved nature, when a human being is tempted by the
desires of their heart, they will rebel against God. So even
before Adam and Eve were guilty and fallen and spiritually dead,
they were unable to walk in righteousness. I want you to hear that. Why? Because
only God is righteous. God did not create the world
and we mess it up. God purposed the world exactly
as it is so that He would be seen as the Redeemer of His people
out of the world. Huge importance. Many deceivers have gone out
into the world. Those who do not confess the coming of Jesus,
the Holy Anointed One from God, in the flesh. So the office of
Christ, the Messiah, His role, His work being the Christ was
prophesied in the garden and then every prophet throughout
history unto the day of Jesus incarnation. Even through Zechariah
and Elizabeth and John, their son, who disappeared and then
came on the scene as a wild man preaching the kingdom of heaven
is at hand. Change your thinking and believe. See, behold, here he is, the
Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, you see. I
mean, this is some bold stuff and people are going, my grandma's
been talking about this since I was a little boy. Really, this
guy? Pharisees aren't saying anything.
Sadducees aren't saying anything. Nicodemus, I hadn't heard him
preach on this. And here's this guy, bugs in his teeth, his hair
ain't combed. He's violating the laws. He's
baptizing people but he needs to bathe. I mean, you know, who
is this guy preaching this good news to us? And what is this
weird looking guy from Nazareth of all places? The Christ isn't
coming from Nazareth of all places. It's like saying he came from
Clexton. What good comes from Claxton? Chicken and fruitcake. I don't know. Oh, and the food,
fruitcake too. People. So nobody wanted to see this
Christ. Everybody had their idea of who
he was and what he was going to do. And we saw in the Gospel
of John, we spent many years in the Gospel of John, we saw
over and over again how the religious people who were looking for Messiah,
when they finally heard the message of Messiah through John, and
they saw the person of Messiah, Jesus, they're like, you sure
about this? I mean, could you imagine being
invited by somebody who's very excited about an opportunity? Now, you're hearing what I'm
laying down here. Pick it up. And it's, man, I'm telling you,
I found the greatest opportunity I've ever heard in my life. You
just got to come with it. Where's it at? The Best Western. We're going to
go to the conference room there. It's going to be great. It's
even going to be spiritual. And they're so excited. They've mortgaged
their house. And they're doing some things.
And you show up, and it's some kind of network marketing, some kind
of MLM, some kind of something. You spend $20,000 in the next
five years, you may go bankrupt, or you may be a millionaire.
It doesn't know. Nobody knows. It's up to you. But they're so
excited, and you get there, and you're going, yeah. That guy up there in that suit,
and he got out of that 78 Pinto out there with no rear view mirror.
He's not leading me to the promised land of financial security. But
he's going to be secure when he takes my money. You see, that's
how it worked. And I'm not dissing all these
direct sales companies. I'm just saying. You've all been to that
presentation. And the people who have brought
you there have been so excited about it because they believe
in it so hard. I think that's what it was like sometimes in
the first century. Oh my goodness, this man. I mean, Messiah has
come. Let's go, let's go. And thousands of people are going
and they're like looking. And they see him and they're like,
is that the Mater Dei? Where's Messiah? Who are you
got to be kidding me? This guy? And that's how the
Jews looked at him. That's how the Pharisees and
the leaders of the first century looked at him. They're like,
this can't be the Christ. So in their mind, they had another
picture. And all the while Jesus would
teach, and all the while other people would proclaim, and all
the while the miracles that he did, and all the while all the
things that proved that he truly was the one set apart, holy,
from God. He is the anointed of God. He
was sent by God. Everybody knew that he was the
Christ by the words that he spoke and by the work that he did.
But yet few of them, very few of them at all, could actually
rest in that fact. They knew it. It sounds authentic,
seems authentic, just can't, I can't see it. I can't see it. I just, maybe. But the amazing
thing about salvation is you can't try it. You can't try Jesus. You can't, you know, just in
case. You can't have fire insurance
from judgment. You can't be scared to death
to get saved and follow some protocol and say, hey, I've got
my insurance card. I've got my vaccine passport.
I've got whatever it might be. There's no mask to cover us from
the wrath of God. But all of us throughout our
lives We've all had, in some sense, a caricature of God in
our minds and hearts, and a caricature of Jesus Christ in our minds
and our hearts. But if we want to remove the caricature, if
we want to remove the cartoon, if we want to remove the drawing,
and shave away all the fodder, and look clearly on the myopic,
explicit revelation of God completely, we have to look at Christ from
the scripture. We have to look through a very narrow lens, and
it's not an invisible lens. It's the word of God. So who
is this Jesus? Who is the true Christ? And this
is what John is talking about. There are some people who are
saying something wrong about Christ. He's emphasizing His
office because in His office of Christ, He is Redeemer. He is Savior. He is the one come
to do the work of God. And I'm probably going to read
the whole Gospel of John before I'm through today. expressly deal
with a couple things that I think John had in view here regarding
the doctrine of Christ. Because look at what he says.
Such one is the deceiver and the Antichrist. Watch yourself. See, beware church. See, sometimes
we get to the practical parts of scripture. We get to the instruction.
We love the doctrine. We love the theology. We love
the praises. We love you what you did Lord.
We love it. We love you. We are praising you for what
you've done. Then we get to the therefores. Therefore be careful.
Therefore, watch out. Therefore, speak softly. Therefore,
do not sin. Therefore, put away anger. And
then sometimes we emphasize those things too much. We never talk
about the gospel and we tell everybody how they ought to live
and then we're thinking, okay, everybody's in the confines of
these parameters and everybody's doing well. All is well with
the Lord. But that's not true. All is well with the Lord because
of Christ. and because all is well because of Christ, which
is a gift of grace, then we can look at the therefores. But we
don't ignore them. So when the Bible tells the believer
to watch out, don't you think we should pay attention? I'm
going to say this and then I'm going to move on and at the end
of the sermon I'm going to say it again, but I believe we live in a land
of tolerance. And I believe that some of us don't tolerate anything,
we don't tolerate Alternative politics. We don't tolerate alternative
music. We don't tolerate alternative food. I ain't eating that crap.
I mean, you know. We don't tolerate alternative gas, alternative
electricity, alternative anything. But we tolerate alternative doctrine.
We tolerate alternative theology. We tolerate alternative worship. We tolerate alternative Christs. So, what is another Christ? Another Christ is any proclamation
that does not fit squarely and dogmatically within the context
of the scripture. And there's some wiggle room
in things that aren't very clear. How do you see this? I see it
this way, I see it this way. There's some wiggle room in some
of those unclear things or applications, but there's no wiggle room when
it comes to the person of Christ. He himself has said very clearly
through the four gospels who he is and what he came to do
and what he accomplished for his people. And the prophets,
who Christ was going to be and what he would accomplish for
his people. And all the while, all of these
things is God speaking through these men. And God, the Father,
sending God the Son to speak as God, as we see in John 5. And we see all this, and yet
we are still inundated with a false Christ and false converts, and
we live in a place where we are pacifying false unity by not
approaching the reality that most people who present themselves
as believers are not believers at all. Not in the true Christ. So pay close attention. Because
God, speaking through the apostle, says, watch yourself. Christ
this morning says, watch yourself. Beware, so that you may not lose
what we've worked for. So that, excuse me, we may not
lose what we've worked for. Let's not lose what, let's don't
lose the ground we're on. Let's not be so tolerant and
throw out truth. But also, we still have the command
to love, but we love in a way of speaking the truth. We love
in a way of correcting error. We love in a way of being patient
and knowing that it isn't our arguments that are going to make
the difference. It is the Holy Spirit of God that is going to
teach through the proclamation of the truth. Beloved, there
is a grand mess in the world today. There's a grand mess amongst
the majority who say they believe in the doctrines of grace, who
they believe in a sovereign grace or a free grace. There's a grand
mess because we have borrowed from all the different bowls
on the salad bar to the point that we don't know which one
the lettuce goes in because it's all mixed up. We don't know where
it is. And when we have truth and purity,
when we, we can take truth and we can put it into the lie column
to make the lie seem bolder. But when we take a little teensy
piece of a lie and put it in the truth, guess what that column
becomes? Lie. So let's be careful. The gospel
is about freedom. The gospel is about no longer
fearing. The gospel is about knowing what
God has done for his people. The gospel is what God has accomplished
for us. Not what God is offering us.
Not what God is willing to do for us if we do something else.
Beloved, if you have hope in what you can do to appease God's
wrath, you do not understand the good news. The good news
is God has done all that there is to appease His wrath. And
when you see that, that is the work of Christ. When you rest
in that, that is the work of God. Do not lose what we've worked
for but that we may win a full reward. In other words, come
and be clear and focused and not tolerant of any other doctrine
but the doctrine of Christ so that you don't lose your joy,
so that you don't lose each other, so that our relationships aren't
severed, so that the glory of Christ in us revealed is not
destroyed. You ever heard of a church split?
That's not pretty. And then in verse 9, everyone
who goes on ahead, everyone who goes beyond what is taught and
does not abide, does not remain, does not make himself at home
in the teaching of Christ does not have God. However, whoever
abides, whoever remains in the teaching of Christ has both the
Father and the Son. So that if anyone comes to you
and does not bring the teaching of Christ, don't make him welcome. Don't give him a platform. And
this is talking about the church. Don't bring him into the body
to teach. Now, is it possible that I could
speak in error? Is it possible I could read something
over the next few months and just get so excited about the
philosophy of certain doctrines that I could come in here and
just blab off at the mouth having never really tested it? Yes,
it's possible. How long would that last? about
the breath of the back door. Some of you might even interrupt
me or call foul. I mean, you know, like, what
the world would that come from? Some of you may wait and you come
lay hands on me as I'm praying in the closing prayer. But I
promise you it'll be corrected the next week. I promise you
we'll have discussions. We'll talk about it. We'll fix
it. And so these things may come up, but they will not remain.
They will not abide. They will not be at home here.
They will not be at home among us because we are the people
of Christ and we hold to the sufficiency of the word of God
alone. Not James' interpretation and
application and commentary, nor any other historian or theologian
that has ever lived in the world aside the apostles. I want you to hear that, beloved.
And if this is problematic for you, you need to pray the Lord
would show you the truth. Because you have an idol in historical
things and in applicable things that are not Christ. Sometimes the best way to see
where our idols are is to see the things we cannot stand to
be quiet about. If anyone comes to you and does
not bring this teaching, do not receive him. Do not bring him into the
house of the Lord. Do not bring him into your presence.
Do not give him a greeting. Do not associate with him in
any formal way because when you do, when you put him on the pulpit,
when you put him in front of the church, when you share, when
you share a sermon that is not true, No matter your intentions,
you are promoting a lie. When you say, listen to this
heresy, you are teaching that heresy to the ones who look at
it and listen to it. You are guilty. You are guilty
before God of being a false teacher yourself. I want you to hear
that, beloved. Some of you are like, no, no,
no, it's not that big a deal. I didn't know. Or I wanted people
to be aware. Humility, my friends. is a God-given
gift of which I do not have outside the Spirit. Because I can dance
up and ugly as good as anybody can. I can just be ugly. Anybody who greets Him, anybody
who promotes Him, anybody who presents Him takes part in His
wicked works. So, what is another Christ? What
is this teaching of Christ? There's so much. There's so much. But I want to start out by saying
this. There's the introduction. Now we're back to where we left
off last week. Faith. Faith. Faith. What is faith? Simply
put, knowing God. Knowing the Father and knowing
Jesus Christ, the one who he has sent. John 17 3. Faith is a gift of God, Ephesians
chapter 1, Ephesians chapter 2, Romans chapter 3. Faith is
a gift. It's not an exercise of volition.
It's not an exercise of freedom. It's not an exercise of choice.
It's not an exercise in, yeah, I believe in these propositions,
or I believe in these precepts, or I believe in these truths,
or I believe in these doctrines. Faith is resting because of knowing,
and knowing How? How do we know? By the Spirit
of God, through the revelation of God. The Spirit of God reveals
to us the truth of who we know. And of course, who we know includes
what we know about Him, right? That's teaching, that's the word
doctrine. So we want to understand the teaching of Christ, we want
to understand the person of Christ, we have to understand the teaching
of Christ. So where does that revelation come from? By the Word of God
alone. So faith is knowing God, and
knowing God comes through the Spirit by revelation, and that
revelation comes through the written scripture alone. And
the scripture does what? Reveals God in an absolute dogma. The scripture reveals
God explicitly and implicitly, not vaguely. The Scripture doesn't
give room for, well, wonder if God is sovereign. I wonder if
God is changeable. I wonder if Jesus Christ is eternal. I wonder. No, we don't have to
wonder. It's there. It's written down
for us. Faith, knowing God, knowing, is revealed to us by the Spirit.
The revelation is done through the written Word. The written
Word teaches very explicitly who God is. And so that means
that there is no room for change, no room for a variation, no room
for manifold interpretation. It is a very myopic truth of
who God is according to the scripture. And so if we are to see were
to know, then we have to put our focus, if the truth in and
of itself through revelation by the Word of God is focused,
then we must focus on that which the scripture focuses on. So
that means we need to focus on the definite and unchanging revelation
of God because faith ultimately looks to what it knows, or better
yet, to whom it knows. And what faith looks at is where
faith rests. And if faith doesn't rest in
the finished work of Jesus Christ, who is the divine God of all
creation, who took on flesh to substitute himself for his people
and impute his own perfection to them in their account, according
to the scripture, through his death, through all of these things,
then your faith is worthless. In Matthew 24, Jesus says, somewhere
in there, many Christs are gonna come in my name. Many, many Christs. And they're going to deceive
many people. Some of them are gonna be so
good at what they say that they could, if possible, deceive the
very elect. This is the words of Jesus. They
could possibly, if it was possible, they're good enough to deceive
the very elect of God. But why can't they not deceive God's
sheep? Because His Spirit protects them.
We've already seen that, haven't we? He who is born protects him. Now, we've seen several people.
In my lifetime, I've heard of three people who claim to be
Christ, the Messiah. David Koresh was one, and there's
two Asian people who have claimed to be. There's one right now
who is alive who claims to be Jesus, the Christ. And we look
at that and we go, pfft. And we see a million people following
him, physically. I'm going, are y'all crazy? But they're not. That's the point. It's easy. I mean, look how we follow our
sports teams. And they're not even claiming
to be Jesus. It's easy. It would happen to
us, too, if it weren't for the grace of God. So that's why I
find it very strange and off-putting when people make fun of people
who don't see the truth as if it's their fault. As if we're
smarter than they are. As if you had a sense of common
sense, you'd see. You can't see if God hasn't granted
you eyes to see. So who are we to boast in what
God has done for us? We have nothing except what's
been given to us. Everything I have according to
the faith and even the flesh has been given to me by my Father.
So who am I to brag? I've done nothing. I've obtained
nothing except that which was given me. And we must not be
that way, beloved. We must rest in the assurance
and the knowledge of knowing that it is by God's mercy and
love for us that we have what we have. But we've seen several
people profess to be Christ over the years. But the reality of
this warning I think sits more directly with those who purvey,
who sell, who manifest, who proclaim, who preach, who teach, and who
express a different Christ rather than those who claim to be Christ.
That's the context there. Those who claim personally to
be Christ are obvious, but they're not so obvious when somebody's
teaching. The greatest false Christ in
the universe is the message, or the method, or the mission
of many who claim to be in Christ, yet they promote and teach a
variation of the Christ that is in Scripture, not found in
the pages of the Holy Writ. And so Matthew, Jesus says that
this Christ is so akin to him that it could, if possible, deceive
the elect, but it will not. So in verse 9 here in 2 John,
and it talks about the doctrine of Christ, it literally means
the teachings of Christ. In other words, the very things
that Christ teaches concerning himself, concerning his kingdom,
concerning the Father, concerning his purpose, let me give you
a bunch of Ps here, his power, his person, his presence, his
people, his potential, his pizza, whatever else, his popularity,
I don't know. So when it comes to the label
of orthodoxy, beloved, I believe that much of what is considered
orthodox in our culture is actually error. Because it is tainted
with error. Subtly. In other words, heresy. Divided opinions rather than
clear exposition. So let's talk about a couple
of basic doctrines that Jesus really expresses and exposes.
And then I want to move on to what some people would call secondary
or subtle doctrines that I think are actually primary doctrines. And in fact, the way that they
are often so ambiguously received through some sense of tolerance,
I think they're a blasphemous attack on the person of Jesus
Christ himself. And from those places, people move on ahead
to greater ideas. Everyone who goes on ahead and
does not teach, does not make himself at home in the teachings
of Christ, does not have God. Some of those obvious doctrines
is the person of Jesus. His divine person, his human
person, his eternal person, his incarnate person. And the difference
is that Jesus Christ is eternally God the Son. He's always been
with the Father and the Spirit. They are one God in three persons
revealed, distinct from one another, eternally. And then eternally,
God the Son took on flesh, created a womb through which he was born,
and a zygote that would become his body. And he came into the
world in which he created. And he separated his divine understanding
from the human understanding. And that child, Jesus, grew up
and learned to walk and to eat and to, I was going to say ride
his bike, but he didn't. You know, read and speak and
eat and all the other things that we do. I don't know. What
do you do in the first century? Draw in the dirt? I don't know. Play
X-Box? You know, they had nothing fun
to do back then, did they? But so Jesus reveals himself
as the second person of the Trinity eternally. divinely the creator
of the world as God, distinct from the Father. This is a necessary
distinction, and those who try to make it not work are really
twisting scripture. That's obvious, right? And that's
in view here, isn't it? That's the context of John's
teaching there. So we got that, we've gone over that. His eternal
person, his immutability, his unchangeability, that Christ
is the same forever. Yesterday, today, and forever,
we talked about that, Hebrews 13 on midweek. And in the core of Christ
and his nature as unchangeable, this is where our hope in the
gospel really sets root. Because we don't have to worry
about him changing his views, or his decisions, or his desires. God has never changed his desires.
And everything that God desires, the scripture says, he will accomplish
and it will come to pass. So God is not mixed up, thinking,
man, I wish this would happen, I really would like that, but
for the sake of confusing everybody, I'm just gonna do this. And that's
how a lot of people approach the teaching of scripture. I'm
just so confused. God's confused. We're confused.
We're just all confused. Let's just have a potluck and
be done. Jesus teaches about his purposes.
He teaches about the kingdom. He teaches about the difference
in the kingdom of man and the kingdom of heaven. And they are
not, they do not correlate whatsoever. They're not gonna emerge together.
We're not of this world, beloved. He's not of this world. He created
the world. And just like time, it will be put to an end and
there will be something new, something new to behold and redemption
and glory. Jesus talks about his father
as being sent from the father. Jesus talks about why he came
from the father. Jesus talks about the power that
he has. It's not his own, but it's given to him by the father.
Yet he does have the power to take his life back up. He does
have the power to know all things. He's omniscient. He knows the
heart of man, the end of John two. Jesus teaches about His
presence. He says to the disciples, I'm
going to be with you. I'm going to go prepare a place.
I'm going to be with you. I'm going to send the one that comes along. I'm going to
send the advocate, the paraclete, the Holy Spirit. He will guide
you to all truth. You will know all truth. Jesus teaches about
His people in John 10 and John chapter 6. John 17. But let's be clear. There are
some things And all of this, and it all overlaps because it's
all the teaching of Jesus. But there are some things that Jesus
teaches. And some of these things that
I want to talk about this morning are in direct opposition to what
we would call common evangelical Protestant theologies. Specifically,
you know, of course, cultish theologies or Roman theologies,
Orthodox theologies. You may not know what those things
are, and that's good. I don't want you to go look them up. It's a waste
of your time. You don't need to understand that. You don't need to understand
those distinctions. They're not important. What's important is
who Christ is and what the Bible teaches according to him. So
let's talk about, let's see, seven things. Seven things that
I think Christ teaches very clearly that are non-negotiable. That if someone were to come
into our fellowship trying to teach differently, that we would
have to address it very quickly, very clearly. And also, there
are people in your lives who say, yeah, I'm a Christian, and
they may not hold to the truth of these things. Some of you
may go, after today, you know, I've never really thought about
it. But may the Lord, the Holy Spirit, may God, the Holy Spirit,
give us understanding this morning. And most of all, in that understanding,
may he give us joy and peace that belongs to Christ, not ourselves.
That we're not satisfied in our own understanding, but we're
satisfied in the teaching of the scripture according to the
work of Christ that he himself has set us apart in his death. Because the Father has given
us to him in his death. And the Father has given us his
righteousness in his life. The first thing that I want to
talk about is God's electing love and grace. God's electing
love and grace. Electing love, electing grace.
In the scripture, in Ephesians 1, we see it there, we see it
in Romans, we see it everywhere. The whole idea of the gospel
is that God will save his people from their sins. Jesus actually
says that explicitly. I have come to seek and save
the lost. I will save my people from my sins. This is the prophet
speaking. And if God speaks to the prophets, then God himself
is saying that. If Jesus is the second person of the Trinity,
then Jesus is teaching it. We're not distinguishing whether that
was Peter or that was Paul. No, it's Christ. Jesus is teaching
through the apostles. Jesus is teaching through the
prophets. If it's written, every conjunction written in this letter,
written in this book, is the word of Christ. I was going to
say every breath mark, but this is English. In John 17, Jesus says, I'm praying
for them. This is what we call, if you've
got the Bible with the headings, usually it's a high priestly
prayer, Jesus' prayer to the Father. I'm praying for them. I'm not praying for the world,
but for those whom you have given me out of the world, for they
are yours to give. All of mine are yours, and all
of yours are mine. He's talking to the Father. And
I'm glorified in them. Jesus teaches that he has an
electing love and an electing grace that specifically addresses
and administers redemption for his people. and that it's in
his person. He's talking about himself. He's
talking about how he will save his people. Romans 9, of course,
oh, what does Paul ask? What does Christ teach to the
Apostle Paul? Has the potter not have any right
over the clay? Can the potter not make whatever
he wants to out of the clay? Can he make not a poo-poo pot?
Remember that, kids? We talked about Romans 9. Can
we not make something for dishonorable use, just to be put away and
hidden or done something with, and then something for honorable
use to be displayed on the shelf to display the glory of the artist?
Can the potter not make what he wants to out of the clay?
One vessel for honorable, one vessel for destruction. What
if God, he asks the question, desiring to show His wrath, to
make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of
wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches
of glory for vessels of mercy, which He has prepared beforehand,
before the world began, for glory? Even us whom He has called, not
from the Jews only, but from also the Gentiles. And the answer
is yes. And God is not guilty of any
sin or wickedness or evil. For God is good in all of His
ways. Paul says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has blessed us in Christ Jesus with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in himself
before the foundation of the world, before there was time,
God chose us in himself that we should be holy and blameless
before him. The imputation of Christ's righteousness to us,
the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ for our sins. This
was done before the world ever began. And how did God decide to do
this in love? He predestined us for adoption
to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the promise
of His will. Why? To the praise of His glorious
grace with which He has blessed us and the beloved. So Christ
desires the salvation of His sheep and He accomplished the
salvation of His sheep. Because of His electing love
and grace, Christ teaches this very explicitly. that those given
to Him by the Father, and we'll talk about that in a minute as
well with the text, His elect, He is not a possible Savior for
every human being in the world. He is the certain Savior of His
people. Christ lays down His life for His sheep. This is the
doctrine of Christ. The second thing, God's electing
purpose in people. Christ teaches about God's electing
purpose. Christ teaches about God's people. In John chapter
five, he says, for as the father raises the dead and gives them
life, so also the son gives life to whom he wills. Does he say
the son gives life to whoever sincerely wants it? Man, you
wouldn't believe the private pushback I got this week just
in my musing about sincerity. Cause I've had that argument
by a good friend. Well, you know, there's some
sincere, you can be sincere. Sincerity is the mark of true
faith. No, it's not. Sincerity is not the mark of
true faith. If that's the case, then every religious zealot in
the world is saved. Well, they're doing the wrong
type of sincerity. They're sincerely wrong. Correct.
Just like most people in the context of the Christian life
are sincerely wrong. They're sincerely in love with
Jesus who's not the Jesus of the Bible. Who is it? It doesn't
exist. It doesn't exist. The reality
of God's electing purpose in people is that none will be lost. None for whom Christ died will
be lost. Christ gives life to whom he will. For the Father
judges no one, Jesus says to John 5. And he's talking to the
Pharisees when he's talking to this, when he's saying these things.
But has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the
Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son
does not honor the Father who sent him. Truly, truly, I say
to you whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me
has eternal life. He does not come into judgment,
but he has passed from death to life. Do you believe in the
gospel of Jesus Christ? Do you believe in God's electing
grace for you? Do you believe that God has saved
His people through the life and the death and the resurrection
of His Son? That God is the starter and the finisher of your salvation,
and most importantly, the starter and the finisher of your faith.
In John 6, one of my favorite passages to get thrown out of
churches with, Where Jesus feeds the 5,000 men plus their women
and children. You know, 15, 20,000 people. We don't know how many
it was. It was a lot. And he does so to prove that he's God.
He can create a power to take a little boy's lunch and to feed
everybody. He didn't need that lunch. That's what's so funny to me.
It's like, we got to have some food. He doesn't have to have
food. He can just say, let there be. And there's like gourmet food standing there. But they didn't come to see David
Carperfield. They came to see Jesus. And so Jesus works. miracles and feeds them and at
the end they pill up 12 bushels or 12 baskets, I don't know how
big the baskets were, I forget, of leftovers. And they're talking to Jesus
and they're saying to Jesus the next day over in Capernaum, you
know, Hey, give us some more bread. Hey, do another trick. Hey, feed us some more. And Jesus
says, quit labor for the bread that perishes, but labor for
the food that, for the bread that leads to eternal life. Give
us some of this bread then. And he says, I am the bread that
came down from heaven. What is he saying? I am the Son
of God who gives life. I am the sustenance. I am the
hope. I am life, because if you don't
eat, you die, right? If you don't drink water, you
die. I am life, and the Father has sent me from heaven. I am
God, the Son, who gives life to his people. And they say,
what do they say? What sign do you bring? Do something
amazing so we can believe what you're saying. We'll watch. Because
you don't look like a Messiah to me. Look at this guy. Remember?
From the beginning. And Jesus said to them, but I
say to you that you have seen me and you do not believe. And
he says, all that the Father gives to me will come to me.
And there are Pharisees and Jews and everybody there. They're
all upset at his teaching. And this is his conclusion. All
that the Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes
to me, I will never cast out." Now you see the operative instruction
there? The doctrine of Christ is that
all that the Father gives to me will come to me. It's an absolute. They will believe
in Him. And all who come to Him, all
who believe in Him, what does He say? I will give, I will never
cast away. For I have come down from heaven,
not to do My own will, but the will of the Father who sent Me.
And this is the will of the Father who sent Me, that I should lose
none of any that He has given Me, of all that He has given
Me. But I will raise all that He
has given Me up on the last day. For the will of My Father is
that those, every one, looking on the Son, believing, should
have eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.
And then the Jews started their little debacle debate, grumble,
humble. This man talks about he's the
bread come down from heaven. What kind of guy is this? He's
from Nazareth and he's weird. And he's now saying he's bread
from heaven. And Jesus says in verse 48, I'm
the bread of life. In John 10, Jesus is talking again And there
are many people who do not believe. And they're wanting Jesus to
prove himself. And he says again, he says, I told you and you do
not believe. The works that I do in my Father's
name bear witness about me. But you do not believe because
you're not, listen to this, among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I've already told you who I am.
My sheep hear my voice. And I know them. And they follow
me. I give them eternal life, and
they will never, never, with any possible way, perish. They cannot perish. They will
not perish. And no one will snatch them out
of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater
than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of His hand.
And I and the Father are one. The Jews picked up stones to
kill Him, because he said he was God. And then he rebukes
them for that. And he says, you're going to
blaspheme. He gives a little instruction
there. Haven't you all been called gods through the world? Is it
not written in your law? I said, you are gods. And if
he called them gods to whom the word of God came and scripture
cannot be broken, do you say of him who the father set apart
and sent into the world, you're blaspheming because I said, I
am the son of God. And then he says, if I'm not doing the works
of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do, even though
you do not believe me, believe the works. That you may know
and understand that the Father is in me and I'm in the Father.
In John 17, we've already said something about verse three,
but Jesus prays. He looked at his eyes and said, Father, the
hour has come. Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you,
since you've given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal
life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life,
that they know you, the one true God, and Jesus the Christ whom
you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having
accomplished the work that you gave me to do." See, this is
the doctrine of Christ, that He came to save all that He came
to save, and He saved all that He came to save. And all those
who are dragged, remember? Drawn, forcibly, as in well,
water, bucket. All those who are drawn by the
Father, and given to the Son will believe, and all those who
believe will be raised up. They have eternal life. God's
electing purpose in His people. This leaves no room for some
universal grace mindset in salvation. The third thing I want to talk
about today. Very similar and somewhat related, and matter
of fact, we'll just make it six things today because these two
things go together. These next two things I want to talk about.
But it is God's effectual grace that can also be called God's
electing grace. And I want to talk about specific
things. God's electing and effectual grace is free and sovereign and
resting. Faith is, as we stated in the
beginning of this message, well, 10 minutes in, 15 minutes in,
is knowing. that which is revealed, that
which is from the beginning, who is Jesus Christ, knowing
what he has accomplished for his people, knowing that it is
by grace alone that you have been saved through faith. And
this faith is not of your work, but it is a gift of God, so that
you can't boast. You can't say, God, I saw and
I made the choice. No, God made the choice. God
saved his people. So God's effectual grace is arresting
faith. is God-given, God-powered, God-centered,
and this is the teaching of Christ. This is the doctrine of Christ. In 1 John 6, we've already been
there. I'll continue there for a minute. Jesus noted in himself
that his disciples were grumbling, because after everybody else
had walked away, what happened? The disciples were grumbling.
He turned to them and says, do you take offense at what I just
said? What did he just say? Unless you eat of my flesh and
drink of my blood, you die. In other words, my death, the
shedding of my life, is the only way through which any of my people
will live. And they were offended at that
horrific idea. Because what was the one caricature
of Christ in the first century amongst the religious people?
He was going to be a military general. He was going to be a
leader. He was going to lead them out of Roman captivity and create
Israel to be this incredible powerhouse of glory. And then in verse 62 of John
6, Jesus says, then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending
to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life,
the flesh is of no help at all. The words that I have spoken
to you are spirit and life, but there are some of you who do
not believe. For Jesus knew, I'm gonna paraphrase
here, about Judas Iscariot. Why? Because he's God. And he said, this is why I told
you that no one can come to me. No one can see me. No one can
believe in me unless it is granted to him by the Father. You did
not choose me, Jesus goes on to say in John 15 when he's talking
to the disciples after the last supper. I chose you. And I chose
you, and I desire of you to bear fruit, which is to love one another.
And now we have John's letters, which is teaching the exact same
thing. There is no choosing salvation.
There is no accepting Christ. There is no asking for salvation. Making decisions toward Christ,
about Jesus. This is literally contemporary
nonsense. Did not exist before the middle
of the 19th century. Yet it is the common verbiage. It's the common verbiage. What
must I do to be saved? Stop thinking about what you
can do to be saved and believe in the testimony of God concerning
His Son. That's what the disciples said
in Acts. Stop thinking the way you're
thinking. I just can't. I just can't fathom, some people
say, how I can just stand here and God saved me. Well, that's
because you haven't been born of God. Resting faith. Resting faith
rests. What does resting do? When you're
asleep, you just lay in there. When you're dead, you just lay
in there. By God's grace alone, through
His divine power, does He cause His people to be born again to
a living hope. And according to His will, He will do it. That's
John 1. Not because of blood, choices
or desires, but by the will of God. God's electing grace is free
and sovereign. We hear that all the time. I say it a thousand times
a week, don't I? Free and sovereign grace! I had somebody say just
a couple months ago, you really like all that sovereign grace,
don't you? And I said, what do you think that means? I don't
know. They don't know. And the term,
you may not know the term, but I promise you if you born-again,
you understand the implications. God is the only actor in redemption.
He's not looking for us to do something else. He's not looking
for us to respond in a way that shows favor toward Him. He's
not waiting for us to change our affections or clean up or
get the right attire on. That's why the evangelical world
in which we live in, that's why so many Churches are in such
bondage. It's how they can have so many
people giving so much money and serving so many hours outside
their regular job, because they all feel scared to death not
to do something more, because they feel like that if they do
something more, at least they have their mind in the place
that two things, I'm working for the Lord, it's got to count
for something, and secondly, I'm so busy I can't worry about
myself. God is the only actor of redemption.
Man is the recipient, the dormant, dead recipient of the effectual
work of God's grace, and explicitly, God's people. Not all men, but
some men, some humans. And God is free in His desire
and operations of His grace. He's free to do whatever He wants
to do with it. He's sovereign to do whatever He wants to do
with it. Grace can't be merited, it can't be earned, it can't
be purchased, it's free. It cannot be obtained by choice
or work. It cannot be obtained. That's
the point of it being grace. That's why we like to emphasize
it is free grace. You believe because God has opened
your eyes to believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ. And you
believe all these things taught because Christ has taught all
these things. And the Spirit of God testifies
to your spirit that you're His child. And you can call Him pops.
You can call Him dad. That's what the word Abba means. We have intimacy with the Lord
because of Christ's substitutionary work. And we are free. Grace
is free and grace is also sovereign and that God freely bestows it
according to His will as He chooses after the counsel of His will. This is the doctrine of Christ.
You see? You see the implications of this? We've already talked about God's
electing people but let's look at it a little bit deeper. Let's
look at a little bit deeper in the context of what we've just
learned. Let's say this, Jesus did not die for the sins of the
human race, hoping that everybody would take a piece of that salvation.
What kind of sacrifice is that? What kind of sacrifice is that? It's a non-effectual sacrifice.
It's a hypothetical sacrifice. It's like just writing a check
for $79,000 and sending it up there to the bank, wherever the
bank is now, and just hoping they put it on
some account somewhere. Just dropping a check, payable
to cash, and sticking it in a night deposit in some bank somewhere
in America and hope it gets to my mortgage. It makes no payment, does it?
You know what? That bank can do nothing with
that check. They'll call you, or they'll call the bank on which
it's written and say, somebody has gone crazy overnight and
tried to pay us for something that they don't know. It has
to be reconciled to something. Payment is reconciled to an account. You don't believe it? Then why
are you paying your CPA if you pay one? It's just not like a bag of money
and it's there and we just reach in and it's like, you know, who
wants it? Here, I want it. Throw it out.
There you go. That's not what Christ did. Christ saved his
people and it's never been taught otherwise. Christ has never said
anything else. The kingdom of man is not the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God sovereignly operates against the will of
the kingdom of man. Christ did not make it possible
for people to be saved. He made it certain that His people
were saved. The atonement is an effectual
sacrifice. The sacrifice did something. Now where do we get all that
stuff? Pastor Tippett, you were just talking in the air. Where is
this coming from? Hebrews really does a good job of that. Read
the letter to the Hebrews. We're in week, I don't know what week
we're in. We're in week something or another on midweek in Hebrews.
You can go and listen to that or you can read it and get a
lot more out of it if you just read it by yourself. Or if you just
listen to it. But the scripture says that the
blood of bulls and goats and doves and flour and burnt offerings,
none of them appease God at all. They were just pictures of the
wages of sin, which is death. And that the only way God will
ever be satisfied is if something completely righteous and holy
and divine died in the place of his people. Jesus Christ once
and for all sanctified a people for his possession. That's what
Paul teaches in Hebrews. And that the blood of Jesus was
effectual forever to save them to the uttermost. You want to
be saved to the uttermost or you want to be saved according
to what you can do to accomplish it? How many people do we know? How
many people are coming to mind right now who believe something
different than what we've just expressly gone over? And this
is review, beloved. This is 10 years of review as a church. And we could go to John 10, we
could go to Romans 5, we could go back to Ephesians, go to Hebrews
9, which is quoted already. But God's The teaching, the doctrine of
Christ teaches these things. It also teaches about effectual
redemption, effectual atonement, justification, propitiation.
You know that word is in almost every English translation of
the Bible. And exclusively in the New Testament. But it
means the satisfaction of wrath. So if Jesus' death satisfied
the wrath of God, guess what that means? God cannot condemn
those for whom Christ died. Romans 8, 1 says, therefore now
there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Christ's death was an effectual death. It paid for the sins of
people. Jesus did something. He saved
his people. He satisfied justice. He appeased the father's wrath. He purchased a people for his
own possession. And Jesus, as we've already said,
does not lose anyone for whom he died. He cannot. He keeps
us. He cannot lose us. And what I want to close with
is this. Is that Jesus teaches about God's eternal glory. Because
it's really what's at stake. Now what is glory? I like to
simplify glory as this. If we go to John 1 and we see
we have seen his glory. Glory is the only son of the
Father, full of grace and truth. The namesake of our congregation.
We've seen the glory of God. That means we've seen everything
that God is revealing concerning himself in the person of Christ.
That everything God is. So glory is to be seen for all
that you are. To be beheld. To be known. So
to see the glory of God is to know him. To know God for who
he really is is to know the Son. To know the Son and the Father
whom he has sent is to know God and to know God is eternal life.
This is what? This is faith. So we're very
back to the beginning and how do we know through the revelation
of scripture how does the scripture teach it very explicitly and
directly who Christ is and what he accomplished for his people.
And so we focus on that which we can see by the gift of the
Holy Spirit and then we look to what we know versus what we
think or what somebody else might be telling us. There are many
Christ's who have come. Beloved the Christ of the Scripture
gives glory to God in all ways and the Christ of the Scripture
and His gospel gives glory because God gets all the glory for redemption.
God gets all the glory in what He has purposed. That man cannot
do anything to merit or to maneuver toward eternal life apart from
His divine work in Christ. See, many love self-glory. Here's the rub. Many people love
self-glory. We saw it in John 12, after the
resurrection of Lazarus. Remember? I mean, what else? You want to see a sign? Let that
man start rotting. Remember in John 11? Where they
came and they told Jesus, if you've got word, the man who
you love, Lazarus, is ill. He's on his deathbed. And it
says, Jesus loved Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus. So,
when he heard that he was dying, he stayed an extra few days where
he was. Why? So that he would die. There
was mythology of, you know, if you're interested in that kind
of stuff, the Jews in the first century thought that the spirit
left the body after three days. So the fourth day, a person is
surely dead. There's nothing living in them.
There's no spirit in them. So decomposition starts within
just a few minutes of death. And when Jesus shows up, he says, take away the stone.
And what do they say? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, Master.
There will be an odor. You tend to the body day one,
you tend to the body day two, you tend to the body day three,
and then you let it rot. There will be an odor. This will be
embarrassing. Roll the stone away. What was
Lazarus doing? Decomposing. It's a picture of
the gospel, a picture of God's power. And what does Jesus say? Lazarus! You ever talk to a dead
person? Sure you have. Hypothetically. I've never spoken
to a body because it can't hear me. I never thought it could
hear me. But the creator God spoke to Lazarus. And he commanded
that body to do that which only God could do. He says, come out.
So Lazarus came out. And then he says, unbind him
and let him go. And everybody saw it. Nobody
had a question in their mind that Jesus Christ was not God
himself. Yet, what did they do? Uh-oh. Y'all, come here, come
here. Pharisees. Dudes. Where's Tom? Tom, come over here. We gotta
kill this guy. He's raising people from the
dead. We've got to kill him. We've got to kill the guy he
just raised from the dead. This is bad for us. Why? Because people love
the glory that comes from man rather than the glory that comes
from God until the Holy Spirit of God gives them eyes to see
and rest in that sufficient glory. Beloved, it's not about life
on this earth. It's about eternal glory. And Jesus Christ gives
glory to the Father in the salvation of the Father's people. With
no help from us, we are dead in the graves. We are dead in
our trespasses and sin. But God, in His love for us while
we were still sinners, died for us. He who had no sin and knew
no sin became sin that we might be the righteousness of God.
Do you see the actor? God is the actor and God gets
the glory for it all. The doctrine of Christ says that
He alone is the glorifier of the Father. This is the story
from the beginning, from Adam to present. And beloved, we cannot
tolerate without burden alternatives to this story. Why? Because God does not share His
glory with any living soul. Now I want to see this kingdom
perspective for a second, and then we'll close. What was Lucifer's
sin? Lucifer's sin was as a created
being by the great Potter, seeing how awesome he was made
and thinking that he was as good as the creator. And he said in
his heart, I should stand next to God in
the place of glory. And a multitude of the angels
agreed in their hearts, you know, Lucifer's a pretty good looking
guy. He should stand up there with God. And God threw them
out. Anybody who takes their own ability
as effort, assurance, choices in salvation is doing just like
Lucifer. and claiming glory that doesn't
belong to them. Now here's the beautiful thing.
The very thing that the enemy wanted, we've been promised. We will be glorified with Christ.
We will stand in the presence of our Lord and behold Him. As He is, we shall also be. Now that stings, doesn't it? That stings. So what do we do
now? We're waiting for this glory.
We love one another. There's so much more that John
says he wants to say, but I'd rather not use papyrus. I'd rather
not use ink. I'd rather not use paper. Instead,
I want to come see you face to face. I want to talk with you
so that our joy may be complete. The children here of your elect
sister greet you. The church greets you. Beloved,
this is a good teaching. It's a lot to carry. I know it's
a lot to swallow at one time, and questions are good. But assurance is found in the
finished work of Christ sovereignly. And all these variations of Gospels
are not variations of truth, they're lies. And we need to
lovingly and prayerfully evangelize people in that context. Because Christ saved his people
and he did so sovereignly. You know in the Last Supper he
didn't say anything about, yeah, remember me when you do this
and remember yourselves. You've got a part, there's not
a side of potato chips at the Lord's table for us. There's not a breath mint at
the end for our involvement. It's Christ's body and it's Christ's
blood. And that's it. And this is the
teaching of Christ. Be joyful and be at peace in
it. Because He has effected salvation for His people. And you can never
be lost. Let's pray. Father, it's hard to focus when
there's so many things that need to be said. But Lord, that is
why we exist as a family who meet often. That we may grow
in our understanding of these things, that we may establish
our growing in grace more and more and Lord let us not be haughty
let us not be frustrated let us not be angry let us not be
worried but Father let us have a clear burden to realize that
there are a lot of people who don't know the gospel because
they've just been given a list of things that they can do rather
than the proclamation of what you have done so as your church we have a great
obligation we have a great responsibility to share and to teach not just
in the world but amongst ourselves to encourage each other in the
faith to be patient and father to not put a platform of lies
before one another let us be about the gospel to inquire and
to celebrate testimonies of truth and father to prayerfully engage
with those who are deceived We thank you, Lord, for the giving
of your Son. And I thank you, Father, that
there is nothing else I bring to this memorial but my resting faith that you've
given me to rest in the finished work of Jesus. And Father, we pray all these
things in His name.