Chapter 8. And just as a way of remembrance,
we are going through the golden chain of redemption, not as a
chain, but as a series of truths. A series of truths that give
us the certainty and the assurance of our salvation. So let's read
that together in Romans 8. Verses 28 through the end of
that chain there. And then we'll talk about these
things for those excuse me. And we know that for those who
love God, all things work together. For good. For those who were
called according to his purpose, for those whom he foreknew, he
also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order
that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those
whom He predestined, He also called. And those whom He called,
He also justified. And those whom He justified,
He also glorified. What then shall we say to these
things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did
not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He
not also with Him graciously give us all things? Who shall
bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Then who is to condemn? Jesus
Christ is the one who died, more than that who was raised, who
is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for
us. Who shall separate us from the
love of God, from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or
distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger,
or sword? As it is written, for your sake
we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep
to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are
more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am certainly
convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height,
nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able
to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Now, remember, when we get through
with glorified next week, we'll still have some more time to
go through verses 31 through 39. As we look at this chain
there in verses 28 through 30, we see. The words just to remind us for
new predestined, called, justified and glorified. Tonight we're
going to talk on the doctrine, the teaching of justification. And some people might think this
is extra biblical because what you're doing is you're teaching
on something that's a word there, but it's not contextually there.
Well, friends, that's still exposition. If you remember some many months
ago when we were in Romans chapter 3, starting in verse 21, we see
the doctrine of justification clearly spelled out in certain
ways. We also have to look at other
teachings throughout scripture to get a full picture of how
the scripture would teach it. But in Romans, we can take what
is here with the word justified, as we see in the past tense,
and understand what Paul has taught us in Romans chapter 3
about justification, about how he justifies and why he justifies. And now we need to put those
things together. We need to put those things together
because this text here at the end of Romans 8 is to give us
our assurance, to give us the solidity and the foundation,
the unshakable rock of hope, which is the gospel of grace,
the gospel of Christ, the gospel of God, the good news of the
truth that Christ is our righteousness and Christ is our sanctification
and Christ is our Savior. So I want to talk about justification
for the next 40 minutes. If you look through historical
theology, which is something I have wasted so much time on,
but I just cannot get away from, I spent three hours a day reading
just. history and theological things, you know, from the 3rd
century and the 4th century and then the 16th and the 18th century.
And then I, you know, have a brother online who loves the stuff and
we got to talking and then one thing led to another and I forgot
to eat. So it was just one of those, you know, one of those
good things. But it's very easy to get bogged
down in what other people think about what the Bible teaches.
It's very easy for you all, as the Fellowship of Grace Truth,
to get bogged down in what I think about theological things. What's
better for us is that we pay close attention to that which
the Scripture says, to what Paul has to say, what the apostles
have to say, and thus what God has to say, because they speak
on His behalf. Jesus Himself talks in John 6
and John 3 and all sorts of places in John's gospel and even in
the synoptics that teach about His finished work in such a way
that we get this teaching in order to inform our theology,
in order to inform our positions on these doctrines slash teachings.
Same word, doctrine and teaching. But historically, justification
before probably, I don't know, 350 AD, there was very little
controversy centered around the teaching. People just assumed
that everyone was on the same page. As a matter of fact, the
word did not come into being until Augustine, or as Southerners
say, Augustine. Nobody even heard the term. It's
not written in that context. But we see the New Testament
with the Latin word that talks about, that transliterates the
English word justified or justification. I think it's justare or something. I'm not a Latin guy. I don't
really care about how it's pronounced and really nobody even knows.
But for that sake, the word in Latin actually means to make
right. To make right. and for a long
haul from the time of Augustine to the Protestant Reformation
and even mingled in with Lutheran and Calvin and all these different
doctrinal positions that have sort of little nuances that from
the surface we may not think are very important, but as we
dig deeper into this historically, we see that one little leaven
spools the whole bunch. And so as we get off here, it's
like plumbing a wall. You might not be but a millimeter
off down here, but 400 feet down there, you're in the highway.
So one small deviation from the truth, one little tiny idea or
philosophy that could invade the truth of a teaching of scripture
can derail generation after generation of believers or worse, professing
believers. And when it comes to justification,
that is probably one of the most after the fourth century, one
of the most debated issues that we've had up until present day. If you were involved, and I pray
that you're not, but if you were involved in the theological fodder
of present day, you would see that in every camp you have conversations
relating to and centered on justification. You would see that just as medical
science fought passionately for and against in certain circles,
Lobotomies in the 50s and 60s, you'd see that in the same way
doctors of theology like to argue the nuances of these practices
and these doctrines. And I think it is a colossal
waste of time. Because the scripture will show
us what we need to see. And though it's important to
have these nailed down, it's more important to make sure that
what we think about these things are accurate. Not from a historical
position. I could sit here and I'll stop
in my head, give you a Lutheran focus on justification. I could give you a Calvin's commentary
on justification. And after a couple of hours today,
I can give you about three or four more gentlemen's views on
justification. And as you look at them, you
would probably say, well, they're close. They're almost together.
And they all get to the same place, but then they go into
different stalls. And I'm not talking about firing
range stalls and I'm not talking about horse stalls. I'm talking
about bathroom stalls. Because that's where it ultimately
ends up in the can. If we do not understand rightly
what the Bible says about this most vital doctrine. Now some
people argue and they debate with me often if it's only just
a few seconds on a front row after I teach or if it's on an
email or a phone call or text message or whatever. Maybe it'd
be social media. A lot of trolls there. But people
will argue with me that this type of thing is not important
for the church. We need to get away from theology.
We need to get away from doctrine. We just need to learn Jesus.
We need to learn how to live and how to go and how to do and
how to think. We need to figure out if we're living the way we
ought to be living and if we're speaking the way we ought to
be speaking. And I'm not saying there's not room for that. Obviously,
in exposition we see it, but moreover, we see it as we live
our lives. But when it comes to the teaching of the Scripture,
we must understand that the whole idea of exposition is to take
that which was written to the church of Jesus Christ for their
edification, for the illumination, for regeneration, and all these
different things that God the Father does through the Spirit
Because of the work of the Son, everything he does in the life
of his people is all relative to what we understand about the
doctrines of Scripture. To say that we do not need doctrine
is to say we don't need to be taught, for the word means teaching. So to say that the church doesn't
need to be taught is actually very asinine in its approach. And if I were being honest, it
would be more arrogant. To say we don't need theology
is to say we don't need to know God. Jesus actually says in John
17, verse 3, that eternal life, this is eternal life, that they
know you, the one true God, and the Son whom you have sent. So
the knowledge of God comes through the study of God, and the word
for that is theology. As we learn what the Scripture
teaches doctrinally, we have an understanding of who God is, I've never revealed to you that
thing, but shown you something totally opposite. Friends, we
have a... An epidemic in our day that teaches
us that if people just say the name of Jesus and believe that
He died for sinners, that that's sufficient for salvation. But
what's sufficient for salvation is the finished work of God through
Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit of God who rebirths these people
who are justified and only those who are justified so that they
may have faith in that work of justification. You see, justification
is indeed the work of God through which He has the justice and
the righteousness of saying that we're right before Him. Now, in a junior high way, not
a highway that's for juniors, but in a junior high school way
of thinking, it's very simple to say, well, justification,
to be justified is just as if I've never sinned. Now, while
that's not erroneous, it's very simplistic, almost to a fault,
to the place that it will teach us nothing about being justified. So after Augustine, after the
third or the fourth century, when this thing began to become
debated, the attitude of justification became one of thinking that someone
was made righteous. Made righteous. I want you to
think about that for a minute. For us to think that justification
means we're made righteous sounds good, but it doesn't mean that. Are we really made righteous
by nature, in essence? That would say that we are standing
perfectly in and of ourselves before God with merit. But see
how little words can really change the meaning of things. Justification
by actual contextual purpose means to reckon righteous, to
declare righteous. It's much different than to be
made righteous. So the meaning of the Greek word,
diakaio, or however else you would pronounce that, depending
on if they're Erasmus or the Hick version, whichever one you
want to use, means to reckon or to consider righteous. Versus
the Latin, where justified comes from, which means to make righteous. You see how different then Roman
Catholicism sort of parted ways with truth just because the doctrine
was no longer studied through the scripture, but rather through
the historical application of the elders and the presbyteros
and everybody else who was involved in telling people what to believe.
And why even Luther during the time where he got the Greek New
Testament from his confessor, And he saw these things, and
he saw that in his mind what he had been trained to understand
about justification was that he was righteous in his person.
And then to know who he was intimately, he knew himself, to know that
he was not righteous in his person, it conflicted him to such a degree
that he began this... I don't know how to say this
without just being crude, he began to hurt his body. and to
scar His flesh, and to beat Himself with whips and all sorts of things,
so that He might feel some penance, some recompense in His own flesh,
that maybe through the suffering of His own flesh, He might actually
be righteous. Certainly He wouldn't be justified
if He wasn't. And you know the history of that
type of thinking. Well, friends, let me tell you
something. Nothing's changed 500 years later. The crux of the gospel of most
evangelicals is that we have been made righteous, therefore
we must work to that end. And they conflate and confuse
and subtract and add and cause condition after condition. place
on the gospel of grace to such a degree that I'll be honest
with you, if I read too much and I listen too much, I get
so grieved in my spirit, I cannot even think. I cannot even remember
the names of the people in my home when I go to call on them.
Why does it matter to me? Because if the world at large
is so confused about the work of Christ and they call themselves
the church, what is it going to take for most of you to be
confused? What is it going to take if all
of a sudden you hear the gospel and then you take the gospel
and you set it aside and begin to work to a place of righteousness
in your own flesh? It doesn't take much at all.
But the beauty is what we've been learning, not only here
in Romans 8 over the last month or so, but also in John chapter
10. We have been learning that there
is none who will be lost, though we may be confused along the
way, though we may need correction, though we may need rebuke. We
who are indeed the elect of God are justified in the finished
work of Jesus Christ alone. And because of that, God will
not let us go. And because God will not let
us go, we are justified in Christ alone. You see, one is not a
condition of the other. It is all equally operative. By the medieval period, There
came an addition to the process of thinking when it came to justification. And because of this grave definition
error, they begin to add to this idea that because justification
erroneously means that we have been made righteous. And because
we know that we are not righteous, then there must be something
more to the gospel. And that's about the time that
repentance became penance. That's the time when people begin
to use words like justification means that you're righteous and
repentance means that you're working on it. By stopping sin
in your life. Friends, it doesn't mean that
at all. When Jesus uses the idea of repentance
by word, when He uses it in the New Testament, He's speaking
almost always to the Jews. And when I say to the Jews, I
mean the Pharisees, the Sanhedrins, the Sadducees, those whose moral
excellence was so well done that Jesus would say, unless your
righteousness, and he doesn't mean in a spiritual sense, but
unless your goodness, unless your perfection is greater than
the Pharisees, unless your lives is greater than the Pharisees,
you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. And he, and he alone as a human being,
was the only one whose righteousness was righteous. So when Jesus says, repent, let
me translate that exactly how it should be understood. Change
the way you think about how you can be right with God and believe
in the news that I just told you that is good, that Christ
is your righteousness. That's what He means. One billion
percent. Anyone who tells you anything
else about repentance is a liar. And I will go to my death fighting
for your joy on that topic. Because that is the bondage that
the devil has grabbed the church by the throat. And he is squeezing
the life out of her. And only by the mercy of God
and His promise to seal and protect us are we able to come out from
under that. And those who say, yeah, but
you're saying we can do what we want to do. No one said that. Quit bearing false witness, you
liar. You wicked, devil tongue. You see? Now, those are harsh
statements, but these are the way we need to address the issue,
not the people. That's a general sense. Anybody
who's upset now, if they hear this weeks from now, well, he's
talking about me. Just text me so that I know who
you are, and then I can say, yeah, I'm talking about you. I'm talking about anyone who
preaches lies. And myself included has truly
preached this wrongly in my history. And it's only by the mercy of
God. But by the medieval period, we became inundated with this
idea that now God has declared me righteous. Now He will work
in me a perfection of righteousness in my flesh and in my mind. And
this is a process of a progressive regenerative work of setting
me apart into holiness, where we get this idea of lordship
salvation and progressive regeneration and progressive maturity unto
salvation and final salvation and future justification and
all these other weird words that philosophers love to pull out
of the cracks of their toes. So what is justification? Justification
always is dealing with the status of the elect as they stand before
God. So, it is nothing to do with
the nature, with our nature, with me. It's not subjectively
dealing with me. I am not subjectively righteous. I'm not subjectively justified. I am objectively justified. God
has done a work and declared you and me just. That is how we stand before God. He declares us just. The righteous judge of all the
cosmos looks at sinners, those who He has foreknown, which means
what? Loved eternally. He calls them. How can He call
them into life? Because Christ has paid the penalty
of their sin and Christ has obeyed where they could not. So Christ's
obedience and Christ's death and resurrection is imputed to
the account of the elect and God has declared us what? Justified. And that's why we're
justified. because God has done it. Justification
is different than regeneration. The renewal or the rebirth, which
is a change of disposition, which is in some way, I don't want
to confuse the two or erroneously conflate the terms, but in some
sense, repentance, the change of mind that meant to know you,
this change of disposition is the byproduct of a new life by
the Spirit. Jesus would say to Nicodemus
in John 3, you cannot see the kingdom except you be born again. You cannot enter the kingdom
unless you be born again. And he was confused by this.
Why was he confused? Because Nicodemus, by his own
upbringing, thought he was secure in the hand of God, in the kingdom
of God. He was indeed a Pharisee. He was indeed the teacher of
all Israel. He was indeed a moral man and a righteous man. And
by the account of the narrative we see in Scripture, a very loving
and concerned man. He wasn't pompous and arrogant
like so many others. That's probably why they sent
him to talk to Jesus, because he had people skills. And so
he was confused that Jesus would say he could not see nor enter
the kingdom of God unless some divine work of being born again
happened. And then his own response to
that is, how do I do that? That's where Nicodemus needed
to be reborn. Because only when God, the Holy
Spirit, that blows where he wishes, rebirths an individual, can they
see clearly what they're being told. Nicodemus, your righteousness
before God has nothing to do with you, but it's apart from
you. It's outside of you. It is my
righteousness. And unless the Father, through
the Spirit, grants you the change of mind, repentance, to see that
your righteousness is only found in me, just as Moses lifted the
serpent in the desert, so must I, the Son of Man, be lifted
up, that I might be crucified for the sake of His people that
He loves out of the world. That's the only way you're going
to see it, Nicodemus. And as long as we sit there and
run our hands back into it, we're going to say, how can I accomplish
regeneration? How can I accomplish the application
of justification? We have not seen it. So what
is our hope? Hearing these words today. Hearing
the truth of Scripture today. God, through the truth, will
call you who are His people to life because, listen to this,
because you are justified in Christ. And I'll close our time
tonight talking about that. Your faith does not justify you. Your faith is in the fact that
you are justified. Justification only comes to those
who are God's. And those who are justified in
the death of Christ will be regenerated. They will believe they will be
glorified. Remember the text we're in. They will be called. They are foreknown. They are
predestined. So justification before God has
nothing to do with what we do, even our faith. And so with this, we look and
we have to understand that justification, according to the Word of God,
the gospel of grace is due to an alien righteousness. How is
it that we stand right before God as his enemies, as sinners?
Now see, it makes logical sense for our historical forefathers
to say, well, you must be doing something in me to make me righteous.
He must be do something in me to cause me to be declared. I
mean, not just declared righteous, but actually be righteous. And
these people, according to the teaching of Scripture, are blind.
Not ignorant, though they are not just confused, not sincerely
misled, but blind, spiritually blind. Because it takes a work
of God. To bring to mind. The strange
idea of someone else's goodness being accredited to you in your
guilt. Justification is due to an alien
righteousness. Whose is it? It's Jesus. Jesus
the Christ. And this is a judicial work. How is it judicial? Because we
are guilty before God. We are enemies of God. We are
unable to come and seek God. We are not seeking after God.
We cannot believe. We cannot come to terms with
our own sin. And we could never, no matter
what the Lord would do, regeneration is not a change of disposition
whereby a human being becomes more like Christ. Justification
is the declaration that this person has all the attributes
of the nature and the essence of Christ in the sense of His
righteousness and His humanity. So justification is obtained
in the death of Christ. How were you justified? When
were you justified? When Jesus Christ died, your
standing before God was righteous. God declared you such because
God credited you with Christ's obedience in His humanity. And God credited you with Christ's
death in your guilt. That's a double imputation. Imputation
is something that's given to us that's not ours for our credit. We did not die to suffer for
our sins. If we did, it would be eternal. We are not obedient
enough to qualify to stand before God in a judicial way. If we
were, we'd always be condemned. So justification is obtained
in the death of Jesus. And this death follows the eternal
decree of God. And Paul says in Romans, I almost
said Ephesians, because I'm teaching out of all these things during
the week, in Romans 3, that the righteousness of God is displayed
apart from the law in the death of Christ, whom God put forward
as propitiation, and we'll talk about that word again, by His
blood. So that means that God the Father
is judicially satisfied against His people's evil, wicked guiltiness
by the blood of Jesus Christ. whereby he has full payment,
recompense. And those who are not justified
by the blood of Christ stay under the condemnation of God justly. Now, that's a big thing. And I don't know that I even
gave it enough credit. I haven't listened to what I said in Romans 3. I
probably should go back and listen to it today, but I got caught
up in other things. But when we think about that
for a minute, that the righteousness of God is displayed in the killing
of Christ. How is that? Because God had
declared us righteous. And if God had not killed Christ,
His declaration would be an unrighteous decree. Jesus' death settled
the debt. And there's so much more. I've
opened a can of worms I can't get to tonight. So justification thus
is objective. It is something that is done
for us. As I've already said, it is not something that is done
in us. It is something that God purposed
and accomplished for us on our behalf. Christ died for us, so
we are right before God. That's how He started this chapter
by saying, therefore now there is no condemnation for those
who are in Christ Jesus. Why is there no condemnation?
For God the Father has crushed His Son and thus has satisfied
His wrath against His people. So there can be no elect person
for whom Christ died who will be lost. Justification does not rest then.
Some people say, well, how do I know that I'm justified? I
don't feel it. Good. If you felt it, it would
be subjective. It would be something that you've
experienced rather than something God has done. Your faith would
fall in line with what you felt. on what you knew and experienced
in your emotions versus what God has said He's accomplished.
There's a big difference. And I know this is big for us,
that's why I want to just slow down and just dig through this
week by week, five, six weeks, and then we get there. The essence
of it is more important than the details. The essence is this,
is that you are right before God because Jesus Christ is your
righteousness, His obedience is your obedience, His death
is the satisfaction of God's wrath against you, and you believe
in that alone. And nothing can separate you
from this love because God has foreknown you and predestined
you before the foundation of the world and you cannot be lost.
And Christ has paid for your sins so even when your faith
is weak and your hope is waning, you cannot be lost. And that
is what the Holy Spirit of God does in our weakness as He prays
for us. He continues to hold us fast
in our hearts and minds to come back to the cross of Christ through
which we are justified. Hallelujah. That's it. But there's some more digging
we can do. Justification does not rest on our feelings. It
doesn't rest on what we experience, but it only rests in this truth
that's revealed by scripture, and it is a forensic truth. It
is a forensic reality. That means it's something that's
evidential. It's something that actually
took place. When I think about forensics, I think about the
debate club. Now think about the empirical mindset of when
you speak in a certain way to overcome certain things or objections,
you must have empirical truth to respond with, not argument
of an ambiguous nature of some kind of philosophical debate
that tricks people. You've got to have truth and
facts. You've got to have evidence. There's got to be evidence that
God has established righteousness in the decree of forgiving His
people. And that is the work of Jesus.
Jesus Christ and His death justifies His people. And if you've forgotten
what we talked about in John chapter 6, please go listen to
that. Go listen to all the sermons
in the latter part of the middle part of John 6. Go listen to
those on the church website. Because you don't need to move
past these things. You don't need to leave here
tonight and say, yeah, that was really a weird teaching time. I'm glad it's over. Let's go
for ice cream. Let this stuff rock your soul and rock your
mind in a way that all you've got is some spiritual soup rolling
around in there until you take note. It might not be a very
good image. That's what I feel like sometimes
when I contemplate the depths of what God has done for me,
that Jesus Christ is called the righteousness of God and He is
the revealed perfection of God's glory visible in His humanity. And then all of that has been
shoved into my bank account spiritually. And I can't dump it or spend
it. I can never get rid of it. I'm
always rich. I'm always saved. I'm always
justified. And there's nothing that can
stop it, because there's no sin in the life of Jesus to discredit
it. None. Thought, word, desire,
deed, actions, gaze, ears, food, nothing. Nothing. Thank God I cannot put my hope
in how I feel. Because every single day of my
living life, there's a difference. I have a life that's not real.
It's up here. But every single day of my living
life, I struggle with the balance of wondering, of wondering, what
can I do today to satisfy God? And you know what? He tells me. Yeah, God speaks
to me. Does He speak? Right here. When you read the
Word of God, God is speaking to you. I see some of you about
packed up and left just then. Oh, gosh. God's talking to the
pastor. The Word of God speaks. And He
says in His Word that I am justified before Him because of Jesus'
righteousness and Jesus' atoning work. that He finished for me. Justification is a declaration
of the elect who are lost and blind and dead and sinners, yes,
that says two things. I've gone a little bit slower
than I wanted to. It says two things. Justification says you
are not guilty of sin. Why? Because Christ is not guilty
of sin and He is our righteousness. And it says something else. You
are also perfect. How are we perfect? The exact
same answer. You're not guilty because you're perfect. And you're
perfect because you're not guilty. And you're not guilty because
Christ died for you. And I satisfied my judgment if
God were speaking. In Him, therefore, you are innocent. I teach my children this way.
They don't listen and remember, but I do teach them this, that
when God looks at us, His elect, He sees us as if we've never
broken His law because that is what Christ has given to us. He's declared us to be as perfect
as Jesus is perfect. And He's declared us to be as
forgiven as Jesus' death has forgiven. So justification then, as I've
already stated, because of all this, is because of the imputation
of the work and the nature of Jesus, both the object of His
work, we are, of course, the glory of God, we argue all these
things, but that's another context. The imputation, the accrediting
to our account, the work and the nature of Jesus. So not just
the death of Jesus and not just the obedience of Jesus, but the
nature of Jesus and His righteousness. So therefore justification is
a finished and effectual work and it cannot be, and I've said
this four or five times already tonight, it cannot be lost and
it cannot be reversed. It is by all means, especially
in this text, what shall we say to these things? If God is for
us, who can be against us? He will not. He who did not spare
his own son, but gave him up for us all. How will he not also
with him graciously give us all things who shall bring a charge
against God's elect? It is God who justify. God has settled the debt. God
has done the work of redemption. God has finished the work and
it is effectual and it cannot be lost. It cannot be reversed. It is impossible to lose one
standing before God because Christ is perfect. So how is it that we receive
this? Let me say this clearly. so that
I don't boggle my words, because when you speak extemporaneously
like this, you can really trip over your words. And I do often,
so I have to come back. Trey's not here. He catches them. He's
about the only one. You are saved by grace, not by faith. Your faith is not the effectual
work of God's salvation. The death of Christ is, and that
is a gift of God through His mercy, charis, charity, grace. It is God's kindness, which is
God's love, which is God's everlasting, eternal, foreknowing love He
has toward His people, the object of His eternal love. The work
thereof is Jesus Christ who died for us and who lived for us and
who was raised to life for us. And so faith is believing in
the grace of God that is shown in scripture about what God has
done in order to establish our standing. Do you believe in the person
and the work of Jesus as your hope of righteousness? Do you
believe in the righteousness and the atonement of Christ? Faith is trusting, is believing,
is knowing, is being convinced of Christ alone and His perfection. Believing that we are justified
before God because of Christ on the cross. Believing that
our justification is a matter of God's mercy. and that our
righteousness is an alien righteousness that's outside of us. It is the
righteousness of Jesus that is ours and granted to our persons
in the sense that it is for our credit, but it's not ours. We
are not made like Christ. We are declared to be like Christ. Faith says we are believing in
all the works of Christ, in all the ways of Christ, and nothing
of our own is included. Faith says we have all the benefits
of the work of Christ and that no additional work is necessary. Even the essence of our faith
makes no difference to the work of Christ. Now what's that mean? The essence of our faith is If
our faith is strong, weak, great. But our faith must
be in the object of the teaching. Christ is our Father. Bye. the Thank you. And beloved, let me tell you
something. Most let me tell you this. Most reformed people believe
that the law saves. And it does not. They will teach
you. That the law comes before the
grace. And that God uses the law, what does Paul say in Romans
seven? The law came alive and I died. And how do I just go? If you weren't here, need to
listen to that sermon. Faith is gifted to God, to those
that are justified in Christ, gifted by God, to those who are
justified in Christ. I don't know why I keep saying
that. Gifted to us by God. There we go. So in that, We rest. Let's pray. What a rest it is, father. To
know you because you know us, to love you because you love
us, to stand before you just. And righteous, because you have
declared us to be, and it is a good work of your righteousness
because you have finished it in Christ. His obedience is our
righteousness, His death is our forgiveness, and His life is
our promise of glory where we will be transformed into a pure
righteous place and a state. We look forward to that day.
Until then, Father, help us. Help us, Lord, to love each other.
Help us to walk in a manner worthy of this calling. Help us to work
out our salvation and fear and trembling as we trust in you.
All things after the counsel of your pleasure, Lord, the pleasure
of your desires, of your decrees, of your will. And you've done
all the work of salvation through Christ because it pleased you
to do so. And all that you do is right and just and perfect.
And you've called us righteous because Christ is. And it's in
His name we pray. Amen. So you see that He will hold
me fast.