Last week we looked at the text
in Romans chapter 1, specifically in verse 5, talking about the
obedience of faith. So let's read through the first
seven verses together and pick up there in part two of this,
which I've entitled The Glory of the Nations, tonight. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,
which he promised beforehand through his prophets and the
holy scriptures concerning his son, who was descended from David
according to the flesh and was declared to be the son of God
in power. according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection
from the dead. Jesus Christ, our Lord, through
whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the
obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,
including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, to
all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints.
Grace to you and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. As we looked last week, we saw,
and let me give a review over the last, this is week four,
over the last three weeks, basically, we've talked about Paul as a
servant called of God by Jesus Christ, through Jesus Christ,
for the sake of Christ, to be an apostle. We've learned that
apostles were set apart by God and called to bring the gospel
message effectually into all the nations. and that the apostolic
authority is still intact today. As a matter of fact, we can say
that it is eternal for it is the authority of God's word through
the apostles that gives us eternal life and is only through the
hearing of the word of God that one can be saved. We've been
reminded that salvation is not about choice and wisdom of man
and decisions and efforts of humanity even righteous living
and works of the law or works of obedience but it is about
the obedience of faith which is meaning the obedience that
consists of faith and consists in faith not the obedience that
is produced from faith and what that means is as we'll look tonight
is that it is the obedience of faith is believing on Jesus Christ
and his gospel for salvation as we saw There is some things
here that Paul has spoken that he usually doesn't talk about.
For instance, the genealogy of Jesus Christ and the prophecy
of him being from the lineage of David. But he does so so that
it would show that the gospel is an eternal proclamation and
that it is, even though these are not Israelites who he's speaking
to, they're not Jews. He wants them to understand that
the gospel is the gospel of the Jews, just like Jesus would tell
the woman at Sychar in John chapter 4 that salvation is of the Jews. The irony behind that is that
salvation came to the Jews but Jews did not receive salvation
because they had been judicially blinded and God is just in doing
so. And if we look at the history
of Israel we see, as we'll see tonight when I read out of Ezekiel
36 in a few minutes, we see that Israel has never been obedient,
not one season, ever, they have always failed to trust in the
Lord as a people, as a whole. And if you don't believe me,
just read the Old Testament. How many times did God bring
judgment against Israel for unbelief and disobedience? Tonight, it's
sort of like a part two of verse five. And then into verse six,
and then we will close out in this little introduction. We'll
close out this introduction tonight looking at verse seven. So let's
just begin to talk about this, looking at this text once again,
so it'll be fresh in our ears. It says in verse five, through
whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the
obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,
including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. We'll
stop there. Let's consider the idea of what
Paul is trying to express here when he says the obedience of
faith for the sake of his name among all the nations. Now, as
Christians and in our culture, it's very easy and very common
to hear the idea that we're doing it for the what? For the glory
of God. We're speaking for the glory of God. We pray for the
glory of God. We assemble for the glory of God. We live for
the glory of God. We even have the Latin phrase
over here, soli deo gloria, which is one of the pillars of the
Reformation, which means all for the glory of God alone. So it's not uncommon for us to
understand that we ought to be living for the glory of God.
Paul even commands, do everything you do, whether in word or deed.
He says other places, whatever you eat, whatever you drink,
do it all for the glory of Christ. Do it all for the glory of God.
Walk in a manner worthy of the gospel in which you've been called,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The problem comes is when we
begin to consider that as our doing, in such a way that we
have to worry, is what I'm doing glorifying God? Is what I'm doing
not glorifying God? Am I being obedient to God? Am
I not being obedient? That's not a bad thing to consider when
we are making choices and we're walking in our way. But in all
reality, I would just have to confess to you, most of the counsel
that I give on those areas, it's not counsel of things that are
found in scripture. It's counsel like, well, should
I get a Jesus tattoo on my shoulder? Or is it okay if I drink alcohol? Or in, I don't know, let's just
say, can I watch an R-rated movie? You know, to which I want to
be a little droll and say, I don't know, you're blind? Your eyes don't work?
You know, is your arm too sensitive? I don't know. And I'm not trying
to be, I'm not trying to be, undermine the severity of making
good decisions, but I think that there is more to understanding
living for the glory of God than worrying about whether or not
our tattoo is correct. I can make an argument that we
don't need tattoos. I can make an argument that we shouldn't
drink alcohol. I can make an argument that it's better we don't watch
any movies, PG or Jesus Christ movies. It doesn't matter. We
probably shouldn't even be looking at anything with Jesus being
depicted in the flesh to begin with. It's a violation of the
second commandment. So, you know, if we wanted to
get really legalistic, not even legalistic, but hard line on
understanding what gives glory to God, we would sit in a hole
and we would never move, never breathe, we'd never think, we'd
never do anything, because quite honestly, there's nothing in
our lives, there's nothing in our lives that actually can fully
honor and glorify God in the way we think, act, speak, and
move. And then if we left ourselves
in a hole, then we'd just be a sloth. So we wouldn't honor
God in that either, even in the attempt of trying to give glory
to him by doing nothing. So where does that leave us?
The obedience of faith, which is to believe on Jesus Christ.
And as we go, we are equipped to do the good works, which God
has ordained and created beforehand that we should walk in, which
includes forgiveness and repentance and belief and love and affection
and chivalry and honesty and all these other things that we're
commanded to be, yet we will not be condemned because we cannot
live perfectly because Christ was condemned in our place. Don't
forget that, beloved. One of the greatest causes of
guilt with the Christian is when someone forgets that Christ took
our punishment. Christ took our punishment. So
for the sake of His name among all the nations, this obedience
that consists of faith, that consists in faith, this is the
believing in the person, believing, trusting, holding, confessing,
whatever word that you like to use there, it is trusting in
the person of Jesus Christ. Everything that He is, it's trusting
that He is God incarnate, that He is the God-man, perfect, divine. human at the same time. It is
trusting that He obeyed the command to be holy and that He died a
worthy death on the cross because He was innocent in order to redeem
and pay for and atone for a people that could not satisfy the justice
of God on their own in any eternity throughout eternity of eternities. We could not satisfy God's justice
against us, so Jesus Christ took it. The obedience of faith is
trusting in Jesus. It's the context in which Paul
is writing here, where he as the apostle was called out of
Judaism to preach the gospel to the Gentiles so that it would
bring about the obedience of faith. So this is the purpose
of God's grace with Paul. It's why Paul was saved. Paul
was saved that God may be glorified by all the nations through the
obedience of faith that comes effectually through the preaching
of the gospel, through the mouths and the writing of the apostles.
And still to this day, if you or I stand around on the street
corner, or at the cafe, or at the restaurant, or in our home,
or on the telephone, or on the internet, and we share the word
of God and the gospel of grace, It is the apostles message that
we're sharing, which through the Holy Spirit works to bring
about the obedience of faith. That is believing on Jesus Christ,
because that is the ultimate command. Believe on Jesus Christ. When Jesus would say to the people
of John 6, when they say, what work should we be doing? Tell
us. And he said, this is the work of God that you believe
the gospel. It's puzzling how quickly and
how deeply we can get into a works-based salvation without even knowing
it. Until we come to the idea of believing by grace alone and
believing in grace and believing by faith, then all of a sudden
we get saved, if I can dare say that term, and then all hell
breaks loose because we're working so desperately to manage our
salvation to the glory and the grace of God. And I think, wow. Never thought of it like that.
I mean, how many of us today, by the show of hands, have no
problems, no burdens, no frustration? Not even the children. I hate
my nap time. I mean, you know, they're laboring
over this, being told what to do. Little Samuel's trying to
get out and move now. He wants to go. He don't want
to be held there. Nobody is without burden. Nobody is without pain.
Nobody is without suffering. Now there are some people in
the world who have so many idols that are so precious to them
that give them such happiness and joy in their flesh that they
don't see that they have a burden. But let those things be ripped
away. Let wealth be ripped away. Let health be ripped away. Let
family and loved ones relationships be torn. The next thing we'll
see is a person desperate to find some peace. We should not
treat our salvation that way because when we do so, we actually
blaspheme God's grace. At the same time, we are not
free to just live a life of lucidiousness and blasphemy and debauchery
because we're free from that. We're no longer slaves to the
flesh. The purpose of God is that He wants to be glorified
amongst all the nations. And people think, well, this
is a new reality. So this is the difference between
the Old and the New Testament. See, the Jews, they honored God
through their obedience. No, they didn't. They tried to,
but it failed, didn't it? Even in their obedience, the
Bible says, the prophet Isaiah says that the obedience of man,
the righteous acts of men, there's a such thing as called a righteous
act, but it's not righteous from a divine perspective. Even though
it may be righteous from a divine command, it may be righteous
from a worldly viewpoint. But not stealing and not lying
and having fidelity in our relationships is not something we should be
applauded for because that's commanded of us. We don't get
attaboys and stickers and smiley faces and A pluses for doing
what is required. But by golly, we surely pay the
consequence of not doing what is required, which is death for
the wages of sin is death. I don't understand why people
think that Israel was content in the covenant of works, because
it never existed for them as a promise, effectually, under
eternal life. It was never there. It was to
show even the law being expressed by God, as we'll see when we
get to Romans 3, was a witness to His righteousness and His
holiness, but it wasn't effectual, never could be, because man was
born a sinner, ergo he will sin. And he was condemned even before
he practiced his first willful disobedience. And if you don't
believe me, let's just think about what the prophet Ezekiel
says. This is a very familiar text for Grace Truth Church.
Ezekiel chapter 36 is probably this text through which little
Ezekiel got his name. If we look at verse 22 of Ezekiel
36, we hear these words. I'm going to skip and read a
couple of verses out of that chapter. The Lord says to the
house of Israel, as a paraphrase, it is not for your saying. Now
let's stop for a second there. What is God saying to Israel? I'm not concerned with you. I'm
not doing this for your good name, and I'm not doing this
for your good pleasure, and I'm not about to say this so that
you can feel good about you. As a matter of fact, if I were
doing what is just, I would condemn you to eternal damnation today,
and I would celebrate it and be worthy of all praise and all
glory and all honor, because that is what a loving, righteous,
holy judge does, is he condemns evil. So God is saying to Ezekiel,
it is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I'm about to
act. Who was the actor? No, it's not Israel, it's God. He says, but it is for the sake
of my holy name. So God is about to do something
with Israel for himself that he would be honored because they
did something that defamed God. And what was it? Primarily unbelief. Evidence by the actions of disobedience.
Don't you understand that disobedience is the result of unbelief? Not necessarily something that causes it. Romans
chapter one, as we'll get there, is that people are without excuse
and they suppress the truth of God by acts of unrighteousness.
So unbelief is the root. Acts of disobedience is the consequence. And then reprobation, as we'll
see in weeks to come, is the judicial consequence. Verse 23
of Ezekiel 36 says, And I will vindicate the holiness of my
great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which
you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that
I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate
my holiness before their eyes. Now here, if we stop here, if
God only spoke those words through Ezekiel and we had to figure
out what was happening and we didn't have the narrative of
history to figure out what was, to look, not figure out, but
to allude to and see what God did with Israel historically.
We could say, oh, God's about to smite them. I bet he burned
them like Sodom and Gomorrah. I bet he drowned them like he
did the people of the day of Noah. I bet he swallowed them
up like the day of Joshua at Mount Sinai. I bet they cut the
bellies open and let their bowels spill out like he did when he
came down and saw Aaron had made a calf out of gold and worshipped
it. You don't remember that? Read Genesis. God's pretty serious
about justice, and He's righteous in that justice. And so all we
have there, we think, oh, are they in trouble? I mean, you
know, how many of you have had siblings where you've seen them get in
trouble, and all you can think about is, oh my gosh, I feel
bad for them now. You know? Especially if you were
the tattletale. Dad, so-and-so did this, and
you hear Dad come in, and the noise I always heard was that
belt coming off through them loops. It's like it's cracking
the sound barrier. four or five times. Jingle, jingle, jingle.
And it's like your heart stops. Blood turns cold. You don't know
what to do. Like, God, please consume me with hellfire now
because I don't want the wrath of leather. You know, it's awful. We should feel that way about
Israel if we just stop at that point. But here is how God vindicates. Listen to this. God vindicates
His holiness in this way. I will take you from the nations
And I will gather you from all the countries and I will bring
you into your own land. Oh, I get it. It must be a prison.
God's going to put them in a prison and call it Jew jail. No, he's
not doing that either. I will sprinkle clean water on
you. You shall be clean from all of your uncleanliness. You
shall be clean from all of your idols. I will give you a new
heart. I will give you a new spirit. I will put a new spirit in you. I will remove that dead rocky
heart that you have and give you a heart that is alive, a
flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and I will cause you
to walk in my statutes and be careful to follow my decrees. He'll repeat himself in 32. It
is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God. Let
that be known to you. It's like God's reminding them.
I'm telling you again. I'm not doing this for you, do
it for me. On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities,
I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the wasted places
shall be rebuilt, and the land that was desolate shall be tilled,
instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all
who passed by." And so what Israel had done is Israel was a nobody
that God created as a people to show His covenant. to show
His love and to show His affection, that though they had done nothing
worthy of being chosen and predestined to exemplify Him and to give
glory to Him, He did it anyway. And if we remember what God speaks
to Isaiah, In Isaiah chapter 6, we see that
what God has said here through Ezekiel is the exact undoing
of that. Almost the exact opposite of
that. Isaiah's vision says, Keep on
hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.
This is God speaking. Make the heart of this people
dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes, lest they see
with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with
their hearts, and turn to be healed. Then I said, Isaiah asks,
How long, O Lord? And God says, Until cities lie
waste without inhabitant, and without houses, without people,
and the land is a desolate waste, and the Lord removes people far
away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the
land, and though a tenth may remain in it, I will burn it
up again. And if a stump remains, like
a terebinth or an oak, I will mow it over. Paraphrase, God doesn't say no,
whatever. But that's what he's doing. It's nothing going to
be, this is going to be desolate. Here, the promise of God and
Ezekiel is for the sake of his own glory, for the sake of his
name among the nations. He's going to set this people
apart for himself. So it's not a new concept. So why in the
world would we start to think that Paul is talking about something
different? If the Jews, in all of their piety, in all of their
morality, in all of their prestigious ethic alignment, could not satisfy
an inkling of God's holiness, Pray tell, how shall we then
perceive that Paul, in the context of the grace of God and the gospel
of Jesus Christ and the power of God, to bring the apostles
to the forefront to preach and to bring about the obedience
of faith. Do we dare say that that means following the law
of God? It's just an absurd ridiculousness. But it's easy in America to fall
prey to that. Why? Because the gospel of grace
is so far gone from our culture. Listen to me. I'm not talking
about just reform. I'm not talking about sovereign
election. I'm talking about the gospel
of grace. There's many a Calvinist who
don't know the gospel of grace. And there's many a people who
learned the gospel of grace that didn't know they were a Calvinist,
and I'm one of them. In fact, the first time someone called
me a Calvinist, I literally just about disqualified myself for
years. I could have put my hands on it. Don't call me that. I'm not a bigot. That's what
I told him. I don't hate people. God doesn't hate people. And
somewhere along the line, I probably said cosmic rapist. If you don't
know who coined that, it's Hank Hanegraaff. The gospel of grace is hard to
find. God sent the apostles to preach
the gospel so that His name would be honored
and glorified amongst the nations because God is praised for His grace. Does that sound familiar? See,
the epistle to the Ephesians Paul makes that the common outcome
of salvation. That God saves a people and elects
a people for himself and chooses a people for himself and saves
a people for himself. He's the actor in it all. The
elect are passive in their salvation, even, and listen to this, even
in their believing because the work of new birth causes faith. Did you hear that? The work of
regeneration causes faith. Faith doesn't cause regeneration,
beloved. If we believe of our own cognizance
and God then makes us new and saves us and adopts us because
of that, who is the one who can boast in their salvation? Me. I don't know why it's so hard
to see. I know why it's so fought. I
know why it's fought so hard. Because we love our liberty.
We love liberty. We love freedom. We love our
rights. But God is praised for His sovereign
grace. He brings the people out of darkness to the praise of
His glorious grace. That's what Paul says in Ephesians.
That's the outcome of God's saving grace is that the people recognize
what God has done for them for the sake of His great name and
we worship Him for it. So in essence, God's election
of His people is for Himself. Does He not call us His people?
Is it not God's gospel that He promised beforehand? Is it not
an eternal decree that God made before He created the world?
Yes, it is, in all those things. See, this is baffling to the
Romans. Put yourself in their shoes for
a second. They persecuted Israel for a
long time. They hated them, thought them
ignorant and a little stupid that they would follow after
this God, this mono-theistic God, when they were wise enough
to have many gods. And they were the greatest nation,
the greatest political power, the greatest military that the
world had ever seen, probably still to date. We don't need
soldiers like that anymore in large. We have them. We don't
need them. I mean, imagine that hundreds of thousands of active
soldiers in the Roman army with no machines and no guns and spears,
swords and shields. They took over the world. That's
impressive. So for them to be told that now
they were God's chosen people was a little bit baffling to
them. What? Because I bet you, if anything, maybe not, but if
anything, we could posit that the Roman Christians probably
felt like second-class Christians. Especially that Paul was the
one that brought them the gospel. That the apostles brought them
the gospel. That Jewish people brought them
the... Okay, we're going to stand in line here and be part of this,
but we're really not fully children of God. Paul's telling them otherwise.
As a matter of fact, Paul's telling them in this book, in this letter,
that God calls them Israel. The tables have turned. It's
no longer the Israelites, but the world. It's the nations who
will worship God. It's the nations who will praise
God for His grace. It's all the world that will
give glory to God through Jesus Christ. Every tongue, every tribe,
every nation, not every person. The pagans, the evil ones, the
sinners, the ones who profaned God throughout all of existence
now. They are the ones whom God has
adopted. They are the ones who are loved by God. And as we see
in the New Testament, especially the Gospels, the Jews love darkness. The Jews love the glory that
came from man rather than Jesus Christ, who is the glory that
comes from God. They love their work and their
efforts and their obedience more than they love the grace of God.
I've had a Jewish convert. Christian man who was ethnic
Jew in our church in California visit one Sunday and we stayed
and spoke for over an hour. The first thing out of his mouth
is, even as a believer of Jesus Christ, the words of free and
sovereign grace offend me in my flesh. How dare you tell a good person
they're not good? How dare you tell someone in
their religion that followed after God and followed the rules
for generations that it's worthless? As Jesus would say, are you blind? And they would say, we can see.
And he says, well, then your guilt remains. Jews loved the darkness. They
stayed and stood in self-reliance and self-righteousness. And they
continually sought the approval of God through their acts which
were unrighteous, but declared themselves holy because of their
works. They feel justified because of
their outward appearance of adhering to the requirements of holiness,
when holiness is perfection, not polish. Holiness is not to
rub off the edges and cover up the mistakes. Holiness is an
absolute perfection without any imperfection, without any failing,
always success. If it's almost right, it's wrong.
There is no gray. And when the polish wears thin
in our lives, beloved, the truth is seen. Jesus called those people
who were very polished on the outside, dirty bowls on the inside. He called them whitewashed tombs,
vipers, dogs, dead men, sons of Satan. Not the ones who saw
their sin, not the ones who said, look at us, we know we deserve
this righteous justice. Those are the ones who are justified,
not the ones who feel as though they don't need it. God is not
glorified in modified behavior. God is not glorified in grand
ethics. God is not honored in the acts
of holiness that the Jews portray. God is not happy when man does
what he is expected to do. And oftentimes what we feel God
wants from us is not even from the Lord, but from the devil
who loves to put us in bondage to the law and slavery to self-righteousness. You ever thought about that? The devil blinds the eyes of
unbelievers because God is the agent of judicial blindness. The author sends the devil, the
agent, into the world to continually blind the eyes of unbelievers
to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel. Now consider
that for a moment. Consider it. What is it that
makes us upset about that? Well, most of us go, well, I'm
not really upset about that, but the world as a whole hates it.
But as Christians, we often lose sight that if that's working
against the unbeliever by the decree of God, then also is not
Ephesians 6 written in the text because of something that is
in reality working against the believer? Do you think the devil
is just giving hands off? Orders? You think the devil,
you think the enemy of God is allowed to, I mean, is disallowed
from investing and twisting and bothering the believer? No, we
are tempted every moment. Some of us are tempted this very
moment to not pay attention. Some of us are tempted by other
things. Some of us are tempted by burdens
or things that are on our mind. Some of us are tempted by our
flesh or our problems that may be going on right now. Some of
us are tempted because we want to engage in something else in
life. Some of us are discontent, discontented. And we often forget that the
devil will tempt us into thinking that we can change our lives
in order to give honor to him And in doing so, we become a
slave to the law once again. Just don't forget, beloved, that
man loves darkness. He's helpless and hopeless. He's
a sinner against God and a slave to sin, an enemy without a mind
that can understand God, and he's a child of wrath. The lost
person is dead. But God is the one who brings
us to life. God is the one who draws us,
puts in us, as we've seen already, a clean heart, grants us believing. God is the one who has predestined
us to be his children, to be holy and righteous and blameless
before him through the work of Jesus Christ, who bought us and
to whom the Father has given us. As we've seen in John's gospel
over the last few weeks on Sunday mornings, it is not even our
will that brings us to God, but it is God that brings us to him. So look at this next word. To bring about the obedience
of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including
you. And we've talked a little bit
already about the Romans and their thoughts and their feelings
and things that probably were troubling for them to accept.
But friends, the Romans were very paganistic. In a conversation with our children
this afternoon, with two of my children this afternoon, We talked
a little bit about some of the sins that we see in the world
and the idea that how the world normalizes some sin and calls
it unavoidable because it's who we are. It's how we're born. To which I responded in a rather
long 15 minute treatise about all of the innate inherited sins
that I was born with. Pride, power hunger, all sorts
of things. Murderous. I'm a murderer. Let's
just be honest. Never taken the life of an individual,
but if God had not saved me young, I probably would have. I might scare some of you. Not a serial killer, but kill
people who deserve it. You know, that kind of murderer.
Including ourselves, right? But in practice, the Romans were
awful people. The Jews were pious people. But yet now, the pagans are giving
glory to Jesus Christ for His grace. And His name is being
glorified by them and honored by Him because of their faith. Not their works. Their faith. Let me say that again. The pagans
of Rome are glorifying and honoring the name of Jesus Christ because
of their faith in Him. Because He gives all glory. Let's
explain this for a second. Believing on Jesus Christ alone
gives all glory and honor and worth and praise to God alone. To God. So that no one can say,
wow, look at my life, look at my choices, look at my development,
look at my maturity, look at my growth. But everyone must
say, look at my Lord. Look at my Savior. Look at my
God. God is praised because He has
done the work. He doesn't just call us sons,
beloved, but He's made us sons and daughters. 1 John 3. We are called to Jesus Christ
and we are called to belong to Jesus Christ. Look at these last
few phrases here, including you who are called to belong to Jesus
Christ. So there's two things at work
here. One, we are called, of course, to Christ, to belong
to Him. But this calling, let's remind ourselves of what this
calling is. We'll see it again in Romans
chapter 8, where we see, and we know for those that love God,
all things work together for good, for those who are what?
Called according to His purpose. And in Romans 30, just a few
verses later, and those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he
also justified. And those whom he justified,
he also glorified. In Romans 9, he would say even
us whom he has called, not from the Jews only, but also from
the Gentiles. The question there that Paul asks, hasn't he called
us? Hasn't he called me? Hasn't he
called you? I guess the question now to you
is, has God called you? Do you believe on Christ? We give glory and honor to the
name of Christ through the call. Now don't mistake this idea of
calling with an offer. I've said this several times
over the last few weeks in dealing with these two books of Scripture,
these two texts of Scripture. The gospel of Jesus Christ is
not an offer. It's not a well-meant offer.
It's not a well-supposed offer. It's not a possible offer. It
is a command of God. It is a proclamation of God.
It is the fact that God came to earth as a human and satisfied
the holy requirements of the law and satisfied the holy justice
of righteousness and was raised from the dead. And the command
is believe on Jesus Christ or die in your sins. Isn't it? If
you believe, you live. If you do not believe, you're
condemned already. That's what Jesus tells Nicodemus
in John 3. So the gospel proclamation is
a testifying of what God has done and what God has said, how
God said He has acted, and how God has established and secured
salvation. God is faithful, Paul says, by
whom you were called into the fellowship of the Son, Jesus
Christ our Lord. See, God called the apostles,
and that's the context of this writing. God called the apostles
and gave them the grace to believe. He called them effectually. The
call is not a, hey, would you come? Would you follow me? Will you follow me? Would you
please follow me? No. When Jesus says, come follow
me, he's commanding them, you now come follow me. I command
you to follow me. It's a command. Jesus isn't asking
us to become fans. He's not asking us to become
zealots. He's not asking us to do anything.
He's commanding us to believe on him that we may have eternal
life. This is the gospel. It is a command given to God
in the same manner that the command that God gives to all men. Be
holy, for I am holy, which we cannot do, but yet through faith
we are holy because Christ is our righteousness. You see that.
And by believing on Jesus, we have eternal life. And it is
a gift of God for which He is praised. The apostles were given
this gift and then they were graced to be able to proclaim
the gospel to the Gentiles, the unclean. And God is glorified
in the effectual outcome of the office of the apostles, of their
message, and of the elect. There's no other word that we
need. No other obedience that we need
to seek after. Because we have been called already
by God, and because we've been called, look right there, we
are called to belong to Jesus. So what does the calling do?
See, it's not a, hey, would you come to me? Would you be a part
of us? No. The call is, hey, my child. Does that make sense? It's not
a call, would you come be my child? He calls you his child.
1 John 3. See what kind of love the Father
has given to us that we should be called the children of God. And so we are. God does not call
someone His child who's not His child. And all that are His children,
He calls. His children. This is a glorious
gospel, church. We belong to Christ, and He calls
us out of darkness. We call this adoption. And all
who are loved by God, look at verse 7. In Rome, and called to be saints,
grace to you, peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. My sheep hear My voice, and I
know them, and they follow Me. I have manifested Your name to
the people, Jesus prayed, whom You have given Me out of the
world. Yours they were, and You gave
them to Me, and You and they have kept Your word. What word
did the disciples keep? They scattered. Peter, the spokesman
of zeal, The rock said, I don't know him three times in one night. They didn't keep anything. But they kept faith for it was
given to them. The obedience of faith was given
to them, even in their failings. And I'll take us to this in closing
where Paul writes to young Timothy. And he says, if we deny him,
he'll deny us. If we do this, if we do that, we do this, all
the negative. He says, but if we are faithless, what does Paul
say? If we are faithless, he remains
faithful. Why? For he cannot deny himself.
Jesus Christ is faithful because if he weren't faithful, he would
deny himself. He came to seek and save the
lost and he saved the lost. He came to atone for sins and
he accomplished that atonement effectually and certainly and
efficiently at the cross. So that we, just like these Romans,
are loved by God and called to be saints. And that is through
the grace of God that is ours. Grace to you and peace from God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Jeremiah 31 3 says this,
the Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with
an everlasting love. Therefore, I have continued my
faithfulness to you. And you hear me say this church that
God's love for you never started. Because God has not moved to
love us because of what we've done or because of our salvation. He loves us eternally. Therefore,
he brings salvation to his people. The picture of what God did with
Israel was a shadow of the effectual gospel that would bring a people
to God for all of eternity. The call of God comes from his
love, not our works. that is the gift of God that
brings the glory of peace. It is from God, our Father, and
it is from Jesus Christ alone. One gospel, one faith, one hope. Now, let me ask you this question. Beloved, these are seasons of
great burden for us. Great burden. Everyone in this
room, I know that there are burdens. Everyone in our fellowship who
is not here tonight has great burdens. What is the answer to
those burdens? Oh God, take away these burdens.
It is never going to happen. Stop praying that way. Jesus said, Father, take this
cup from me. And he prayed it one time and
he said, but not what I want, but that your will be done. And
he stood up and he walked out and he was arrested. Beloved,
we fill up what is lacking in the suffering of Christ visibly
in this earth when we suffer well as Christians. It is a guarantee
for us. If you're looking for the day
where the suffering and the burden is going away, You are running
a fool's errand with weights around your ankles at the bottom
of the sea trying to breathe. And there is nothing more ridiculous
than that picture. The gospel of grace is sufficient,
certainly for our salvation. But as we'll see in just a few
verses, two weeks from now, the gospel of grace is the power
of God. So what does that mean for me?
That means when you're so anxious that you can't stand upon your
own two feet, it is a glorious place to be, for one, because
it now is an opportunity for you to see firsthand, experientially,
that Christ is your strength. And that He doesn't need any
of us, as we sang before the service, not in me. What can I do? Nothing. It's
not in you. It's like if you ask me for a
thousand dollars right now, I don't have it. If you ask me for a
gold brick, sorry. You ask me to, I don't know,
get a tan, can't help you. There's things we cannot do,
but there's nothing that God can't do. And being together
as a people is where our encouragement is stirred. Hear me, church?
Being together in the teaching of the Word of God is where our
encouragement is stirred. It's where the grace of God is
adhered to us in a way that we collectively learn at the same
time. And then the little moments of fellowship and the little
moments of interaction as we spread out of this place and
the prayers that go with us work greatly and mightily to the praise
of the glorious grace of God as we pray for one another. There
is no excuse except unbelief. of why we cannot handle what
God has given us as a gift. And I want you to be encouraged
by that, church, that even in our unbelief, He's faithful. He's faithful. And what we seem
to think is impossible today is nothing for God. And when
He moves this obstacle, we shall be headstrong into another one. So what do we look forward to?
I don't know about you, but I'm learning, haven't learned, but
I'm learning to enjoy the experience of the ministry of God to me. So that when I feel there's no
hope, I can look at the hopefulness of the gospel and learn one day
that even in this moment, though, when I open my eyes and I take
my mind off of scripture, all the junk that's here will still
be here. But in that moment, it's a little glimpse of what
it will be like forever when I put my focus and my hope on
eternity. Put your focus on eternity. Not
your problems, not the people, not your poverty, not your body,
nothing. Put it on Christ. And when you
can't do it, you scream and we'll come running and we'll walk with
you. And we'll not do it together
so that God is glorified in all that He does. Let's pray. Father,
oh Lord, I pray for us. I pray for us, Father, because
we're desperate. And we don't even know it sometimes. Some
of us, we go through days, we don't even know we're desperate
for your power. We don't even know that we're
existing by your grace. We say it, but we're not. considering
it to the fullest. Help us to meditate on that. Help us to sit down and think
about your word. And let it not be when we gather
is the first time we've considered your word. Even when we're busy. Father, you're the God of time.
What can you do? What can you do with nothing?
You can create a universe. What can you do with the impossible?
You defy it. Lord, if you can do these things,
if you can save a people who deserve your wrath, you can help
us walk through the fire. For even if it destroys our body,
we win. Lord, give us the peace. We pray
for our unity, the affection of our congregation. Father,
all the labors and the troubles that go without each of our lives,
all of the burdens that we're all carrying some very significant. Father, we trust you for provision.
For our personal needs. For our church. For the government. Whatever it may be that we fear.
We trust you. Call us into that peace, which
is ours in Christ Jesus. And it's in His name we pray.
Amen. Thank you, Church.