Between the years in history
of 1517 and 1648, there stood at the precipice of time a movement amongst the church. And the truth that we so easily
speak and cheerfully sing had been hidden. It had been hidden. for years, decades, centuries. And the truth is that the Word
of God and the God that is displayed through the Word and the Gospel
of Jesus Christ have been hidden. And at this time in history,
we know it to be called the Protestant Reformation. And those of you who have been
with us on Tuesdays, you've heard and seen the development of that.
You've seen how it moved into the United States or the new
land or the new world, uniquely Protestant, uniquely European. And you've seen that people were
escaping their land to move to a new land with hopes of being
a pure body, a pure church. And in 1517, a young monk by
the name of Martin Luther had had enough of the gospel
being hidden. And through his father confessor,
he had seen in the book of Romans and other places that Jesus Christ
alone provides the sufficient work that a man might be made
right before the eyes of God by grace through faith alone. Reform was needed in this day. Reform was needed severely, not
just because theological things were being debated, not just
because there was some doctrinal issues that were sort of up in
the air. It's because there were doctrinal issues that were no
longer being taught. The Word of God was no longer
taught. The Word of God was no longer
studied. The Word of God was no longer
the foundation of the church's health and heartbeat. It had
given way to tradition and culture and felt needs and reaching the
masses. And October 31st of 1517, this
young monk nails 95 feces on the chapel door. And Vickenberg
Chapel. And it launched the Protestant
Reformation that lasted until 1648. With the signing of the
Peace of Westphalia. Which legally ended the war between
the Protestant movement of reform and the Catholic Church. There was a need for reform in
this medieval day. The church called the Catholic
or Universal Church had come to a place where reform was not
only needed, it was mandatory if the gospel of Jesus Christ
would survive. There was financial exploitation.
There was payment for privileges in the church. If you had enough
money, you could become a bishop or a monk or whatever. Bishops were appointed by purchasing
their positions. It was no longer important for
them to be trained in the Scripture. It was no longer important for
them to be spiritual. But whoever had the greatest pocket got the
greatest position. The church sold what was called
indulgences. And indulgences were basically
writs of permission to sin. For example, You claim to be
a child of God and you are in the church. But you know that
the deepest core of your heart is that you want to go out tomorrow
morning and just get drunk. And the conviction of your soul,
even as an unbeliever, you realize it's not the best for you. The
church has told you that drunkenness in itself is a sin. And so in
your heart, you know that drunkenness condemns you. Well, That's what
you've been taught. But fear not, dear Christian,
for we the church have the power to excuse that sin, not through
the work of Jesus Christ, not through forgiveness and repentance,
but you can go ahead and plan for that sin, for we, if you
have the right funds, will provide you a writ of indulgence, and
that sin will be forgiven before it's ever committed. The more
money you have, the more indulgences you buy, the more sin you can
commit with no penalty. They believed that you could
pay God money to remove sins. They believed the more that they
paid, the lesser days they would have in purgatory to work their
sins off. This led to salvation of works. This led to justification of
righteousness of men, and that those men who could not be righteous
could earn their righteousness through their financial payments. There was a papal schism where
there were three popes at one time. A lot of things happening. The power of the Roman church
was growing. And the military had to get involved
to finalize who was going to be the pope. And all this just
culminated with the Lord showing Martin Luther and men like him
it was time to stand up. The five pillars of that reformation,
there's a lot there, that's just an introduction to the introduction
of the introduction. The pillars of the reformation
are these things that you see on the wall, these five banners.
sola scriptura, soli Deo gloria, solus Christos, sola gratia,
sola fide. Scripture, the Word of God alone,
for the glory of God alone, by Jesus Christ alone, through grace
alone, by faith alone, period. These are the foundational pillars
of what it means to be Christian. They were revived during the
Reformation. They were not discovered. These
come from the Word of God. Paul taught them. Jesus taught
them. John taught them. James taught
them. The prophets pointed to them. And Jesus Christ fulfills
them. It's bad to think, well, these
men made this stuff up. These men made up these doctrines.
These men made up these doctrines of grace. These men made up the
pillars of the faith. Friends, that is so far from
the truth. It's like someone coming into
your house and your grandmother gave you a recipe for pound cake. And you're making this pound
cake and had been doing it for some time. And you know that
it takes a pound of this and a pound of that and a pound of
this and a pound of that and you pound it all together and
you pound it on the floor and you pound it in the oven and
you pound it on your body as you eat it. And it just pounds
up. Well, someone's there with you
and you are making your recipe, and not only have you been making
it for a long time, but you have and your grandmother's writing
the original recipe that she wrote. And as you're putting
in these ingredients, the person that is visiting with you who
is a wonderful cook decides, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
that's not how you make a pound cake. You're missing the parsley. You've got to chop the parsley
very fine and layer it on the bottom and in the middle and
on the top. And then you put it in the oven.
Now, those of you who like pound cake know that parsley in pound
cake is one of the most horrific sins that anybody could commit.
Not only does it change the taste, but it tries to act like some
help is in a pound cake. It's deceit. And the point being
is, If you decided then at that day to take your grandmother's
handwritten recipe and to type it up the computer and to publish
it online on the proper way to make a pound cake, you would
not be inventing anything. You would be reviving the old
recipe and correcting all of the mistakes that had come along
the way. And that's what the reformers did. They look at the recipe of the
church and of the doctrines and of truth. And they say, where
is it? It's gone. This is no longer truth. It's no longer
the Word of God. It's no longer the church. We're
not a people of God and by His own, for His glory. We're a people
of the world indulging in the flesh that doesn't love holiness,
but loves the world. And we've got to stand up and
stop this. We have to proclaim the Gospel.
Men are dying. and perishing, and God's name
is being defamed, and we stand in judgment if we do not obey. And the Holy Spirit of God put
a holy fire in the hearts of these men that they stood up,
and it is why we are here today, church. And I am of the opinion,
and have been for some time, that reform should never stop. Reform should always be before
us. We ought to always be, as the
Bereans are and were, looking into what is being taught to
us. And as 1 John teaches us in chapter 4, looking to test
the spirits to see if they are indeed the Spirit of God. And
what is it that John says in 1 John 4? He says, that which
says of the Spirit that says that Jesus Christ is the Son
of God is of God. But we might ask ourselves, well,
certainly no one I know would say that he's not. Well, they
may say it with their lips, but their actions prove different.
Their teachings prove different. There's a need for reform in
the church today. Foundationally, Grace Truth Church, as we get
through this, this little mini series, depending on how many
weeks it takes me, I'm going to deal with some core and important
doctrines. Today, we are going to look at
the solas of the Reformation. It is the foundation of Grace
Truth Church's doctrinal statement. mission, vision, purpose, any
other fancy word you want to put on there. We look at these
five pillars as a way of start starting. And if you look at
our website, you will see that. If you look at our documents,
you will see that. That's what makes us unique. Is that we don't
want to be an American church, we want to be a biblical church.
We don't want to be a church that placates to the culture.
We want to be a church that glorifies the Father. So we don't want
to revisit and revamp and reevaluate and try to come up with new ways
of thinking. We want to look at the historical
way of thinking, the word of God. And then we see how God
used the Reformation to revive the truths of Scripture. And
we hold to those truths. And so I want to share with you
today. That if we are to have one faith,
we need to know what that one faith is. I start with these
solas. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter
four. And look at verse 17, I'm going
to read down the verse. Twenty one. Now this I say and
I testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles
do in the futility, and we've learned this for two weeks, the
uselessness, the worklessness of their minds. They are darkened
in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because
of the word ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of
heart. And then we went to Romans one
last week and we looked at that hardness and we know that it
is judgment. Friends, when we think we have
understood all truth and we've got it down and we don't need
to learn anything else, I believe it's a sign of judgment. At best, it's a sign of arrogant
pride. We do not have it. They have
become callous, verse 19, and have given themselves up to sensuality
The things that feel good to the body, the things that's good
for the flesh, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But,
verse 20, and this is the key, and this is where this series
is going to come from. That is not the way you learned Christ.
Paul's saying you didn't learn Christ that way. You did not
learn Christ. You did not learn that Christ
tells you to go and live as the world. You are not a slave to
the sins of your flesh any longer. You are free, for the Son of
God has set you free, and you are free indeed. You haven't
learned Christ that way. Now, interestingly enough, we
have to be reminded, and I will remind us all, myself included,
that Paul is not talking about the world. He's not talking about
unbelievers who do not claim to have faith. He's talking about
people who claim to be in the church who are unbelievers. There's
a learned lesson here. We must quit pointing out to
the world, in hopes to change the world's behavior, their sin.
There's no prescription for that. We preach the gospel. We tell
the world that God commands all men to repent of their sin and
believe the gospel and that every human being that's ever had a
heartbeat other than the Christ Jesus is utterly, utterly wicked. And if we Share that to the world,
then we govern the body as we are a part of it, and when the
body is sinning, then we call it out. We don't go to the world
and say, hey, lost person, stop sinning and put all our time
there. Stop. You haven't learned Christ
that way, lost person. He's going, I never learned Christ
anyway. So what are we to do? We're to make disciples, we're
to teach them. There's a whole bunch of things that you just
need to grab hold of and hold on. I can't develop and settle
every argument that's going to pop into your mind today. It's
not going to happen. What about this? Good question.
Coming a week from Tuesday, we've got Q&A. You have not learned Christ.
Look at verse 21, "...assuming that you have heard about Him
and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off
your old self which belongs to your former manner of life and
is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in
the spirits of your minds." And so what Paul is showing, and
we haven't gotten here yet, we'll get here in a couple of weeks,
but what he's showing is that we who are believers then have
the power in Christ to put off the old self. Those who are not
believers don't have the power to do so. But in the church of
America, because we like comfort, and because we would rather just
stand around and do nothing and be content with our holy huddles,
until somebody who never has claimed to have Christ decides
to show themselves for what they really are, which is sinners,
we'd rather spend all of our resources attacking the world
because it takes us off the hot plate. I call it the tabloid syndrome. You watch the Olympics, you see
all these people, they're in great shape, they eat right, they do
all sorts of things. They go, man, I need to get healthy.
And if you see them on the National Choir while you're buying groceries,
and they've gained like 90 pounds or 300 pounds or 700 pounds,
you go, yeah, look at there. It makes you feel good. I knew
they couldn't keep it up. Because we'd rather see someone
else fall than deal with our own sin. I'll be honest with
you. It's a lot easier. What does
it say in Romans one? We learned it last week that
God turns them over to reprobate mind to do what is unnatural.
So the judgment of sin is for God to allow a person to sin
and they stack judgment. But you haven't learned Christ
that way, church. You know that you have been freed from sin.
Do you still struggle? Absolutely. But do you snuggle?
No, not at all. So with that, we want to learn
Christ. We want to learn Christ. We want
to move into understanding what we believe and what we should
believe. And we are in a place where there is great room for
discussion, even debate, vigorous debate. But there is never room
for rearranging of foundational truths. We will not compromise
on truth. We will remain in a dogmatic
position very gracefully and very humbly and very lovingly.
But never, ever, ever does any person, including the greatest
pastor in the world, whoever that might have been, Paul maybe,
no one has the authority to come and say, we should look at this
doctrine differently. And now we've realized that we
should change our positions. That is, of course, unless we're
wrong in the first place. But Paul says in Galatians, chapter
one, that the gospel that was preached to the Galatians was
the only gospel. And that if he came back to preach
anything differently, that he prays or he commands, actually,
he actually declares more prophetically than anything, that he be accursed,
anathemas, cut off from Christ. If an angel from heaven comes
and proclaims a different gospel than what I have already proclaimed
to you, let him be forever accursed, cut off from Christ. You see
in Ephesians what we just read? forever alienated from the life
that is in God. So if we are not unified in one
faith, chances are we might very well be an alienated from the
one true God. For Jesus says in John 17, this
is eternal life, praying to the Father in this high priestly
prayer, that they know you, the one true God and the Son Jesus
whom you have sent. This is eternal life, that you
have knowledge of the Father and that supernaturally you've
been made alive to love Him, to live for Him. to worship Him,
to adore Him, to be satisfied in Him through Christ Jesus.
That's the good news. That is eternal life. Eternal
life isn't about doing something, saying something, believing something.
Repent, believe the gospel is a constant outcome of true faith. A brother loves to text me every
now and then, and yesterday he texted me just very simply, repent! You know what I'm talking about.
And I responded back, Every day, every second. Sometimes when you hear repent,
you think, well, I've already repented. Well, repent from thinking
that. Turn from sin and trust in Christ. Let's look at the solas today. Some of you may not realize the
significance of these things. Why in the world would I decorate
our place of worship? Because it is a constant reminder.
I wish they were where I could see them better. A constant reminder of what the
foundations of our faith are. We are indeed believers who are
Protestants. We are not part of a universal
Catholic Church where everyone who claims Christ is part of. We are uniquely Protestant. We
are uniquely Reformed. And we do not make any qualms
or apologies about it. I believe it's something that
the church needs to really take a stand on. Every congregation,
every member of every church ought to have at least a document
where they can stand and go, this is what my church believes
on this statement. Statistics show that in the communities
surrounding us, that over 80% of the people living in these
communities are unchurched. And recent surveys in the last
decade show that nearly 90 percent of all people who are church
are lost based on their own interpretation of justification. They cannot
tell you what it means, what salvation is or how you obtain
it. And so by that, we'll just round
it. Let's just say that we know that
nearly 90 percent or better of all people in every community
around here is lost. While yet in the census, the
last census that was taken, almost eighty six percent or eighty
eight percent of everyone questioned affiliated themselves as Christian.
Or some a part of some church. What's wrong? Joining the church is like joining
a jelly club. Fill out the card. Mail it in. Heck, some jelly clubs, it's
already prepaid. You just have to wait 12 weeks.
They send you a bar of jelly and it's a dollar. And then a
month later, it's $20. The church is the same way. Oh, you
want to be a part of the church? Praise the Lord. Come on down.
Come up front. We will not be that way. I want
everyone to understand what we believe and what we stand for
so that there's no question and no problem. when it comes to
being held accountable to these beliefs. Sola Scriptura. Sola Scriptura basically means
by Scripture alone. Scripture alone. Scripture alone. Scripture alone, here is the
way we ought to look at it. Scripture is our authority. It
is the foundation and the final court of arbitration Luther says
it this way, unless I am overcome with testimonies from Scripture
or with evident reasons, for I believe neither the Pope nor
the Council, since they have often erred and contradicted
one another, I am overcome by the Scripture text which I have
adduced on my conscience is bound by God's Word. So Luther is basically
saying, if you have anything to say to him that's not from
the Word of God, just be quiet. For there is no other place to
defend or debate or discuss any doctrine, any truth, any reality
about who Christ is, except the Word of God. Well, yeah, I believe
that. But do you believe that the Word
of God alone is the foundational authority for everything else?
You want to understand about Christ alone? You want to understand
about grace alone? It comes from the Word of God
alone. I oftentimes want to put sola deo gloria, for the glory
of God alone, as the foundation of all the pillars. And it is. But unfortunately, if we do that
and don't have the Word of God underneath and undergirding that,
then we don't know about the glory of God except through our
own devices and our own traditions. We must understand that the Scripture
is absolutely divinely authoritative and it is inerrant. If it has
any error at all in it, then we are helplessly accursed and
cut off. We are hopeless and have no reason
for joy. We, above all people, as Paul
stated, if there was no resurrection, we ought to be pitied. And the
Scripture has been moved and shifted. Without Scripture, and
without Scripture alone as the final and foundational and superior
and divine authority, the entirety of the Christian faith goes Nowhere. Jesus Christ Himself said the
Law and the Prophets point to Him. He says, I came to fulfill
the Law. So the holiness of God is something
that the Word gives us. Let me give you six quick things
that just pop into my mind about Scripture alone. Sola Scriptura
gives us the measure of God's holiness and thus His worth.
The foundation of the Word of God alone helps us to see the
measure of God's holiness. We know when He says, Thou shalt
not have any other gods before Me. Do not covet. Do not lust. Do not steal. Do not disobey
your parents. Don't do these things, for if
you do, the measure of My judgment will come at the same measure
of My holiness, which is infinite. And then the Scripture tells
us, the second thing I want you to see, Sola Scriptura tells
us the measure of man's sinfulness. For with the measure of God's
holiness, then we comparatively look and see the measure of our
sinfulness. We are fully and radically corrupted to the core
of our structure, of our soul, of our being, of our mind. Before
we can even choose to sin, we are in trouble of judgment. It
is over us and held over us, and if we are never never given
effectual grace to come to faith, we will suffer the penalty of
that sinfulness, which is the judgment of God for all of eternity.
The third thing that Sola Scriptura gives us is the fullness of the
gospel. Period. Not some of the gospel,
not some things about the gospel. The fullness of the gospel. The
gospel starts with, let there be light, and ends with, add
nothing else to this. It's the period, it's the be
all and end all. Sola Scriptura is the revelation
of God's redemption of His people. And there is no other place to
find it. And without the fullness of the Gospel, we can't have
the fourth thing that Sola Scriptura gives us, which is eternal life.
Romans 10, 17, for hearing, faith comes by hearing, and hearing
comes through the words of Christ. The words of Christ are not given
through Osmosis is not given through visions. It's not given
through prophets. It's given through the Word of
God, through the prophets of old and the apostles of old,
through the Spirit of God gives the Word of God and it's already
been done. It is sealed and it is finished. Well, the Council
of Nicaea decided what books they were going to use. No, the
apostles and the disciples of the apostles and the church fathers
were already using these books. And a bunch of other books that
were historical, as my wife and I have talked about, that were
showing up and appearing, and people were pushing them into
the canon. And they said, no, we must stand on what we know
is the apostolic authority and the apostolic writing, and we
will seal this. And so anybody else that comes
up with any other books apart from this, we would not recognize
them as brothers, for they do not recognize Sola Scriptura
and the authority of the Word of God. And this was in the fourth
century. And the fifth thing, so the Scripture
gives us is the full knowledge of truth, all truth. The Scripture
is the source of all truth. Well, where is DNA? It's not
there. I'm not talking about those things. I'm talking about
the source of all truth. Jesus Christ is the way and the
truth and the life. For example, if you want to understand
the fullness of why there is DNA. and how it came to be. We
understand that in Colossians chapter 1. For Christ, who is
the visible image of the invisible God, and through all things were
made through Him and for Him and by Him, and He holds it all
up. He holds the universe up by the
word of His power. What else do you want? The creative
world, no matter how small and intricate we dig, it points to
the absolute sovereign Creator who is Jesus Christ. The Scripture
is the source of all truth. And the sixth and final thing
the Scripture gives us, sola scriptura, is the vehicle through
which God's Holy Spirit gives life, through which God's Holy
Spirit gives grace, through which God's Holy Spirit gives encouragement,
through which God's Holy Spirit gives conviction of sin. through
which God's Holy Spirit gives power. You can't have power by
somebody putting their hands on you. Paul put his hands on
Timothy and he wept with joy. And the Holy Spirit went into
Timothy and Timothy jumped up with all knowledge and wisdom
and then went out and started to preach the gospel and plant
churches in Ephesus. Those days are over. If you want
Paul's hands on you, open up Ephesians. Open up Timothy. But as for you, he says, young
Timothy, continue in what you've learned and have firmly believed,
knowing from whom you've learned it and how from childhood you
have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able
to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching,
for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness
that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
See, the Word of God, Sola Scriptura, is all we need to be Christians,
effective and fruitful in the world. It's all we need to be
the greatest parents that God could have ever created. It's
all we need to be the greatest husbands and the greatest wives
and the greatest grandparents. It's all we need to be the best
slave or the best employer, the best business owner. The Word
of God is it. And when it goes away, everything
goes. Everything goes. The psalmist
writes, open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things about
your law. Do you love the law of God? John
says in 1 John that the law of God, that the Word of God, that
the law is loved by the saints. The children of God love His
law and it is not burdensome to them. It's beautiful to us. It doesn't break us anymore. It fills us up with joy to see
the insufficiency of our being and to realize the sufficiency
of Christ and that He fulfilled it and His righteousness is given
to us. And it is a beautiful gift that
we could not deserve. And if that is not how you are
saved, you are not saved. Psalm 138, I bow down toward
Your holy temple and give thanks to Your name for Your steadfast
love and for Your faithfulness. For You have exalted above all
things Your name and Your Word. See, God exalts His Word equal
to His name. And we know what happens when
God's name is defamed. You know what happens when God's
Word is defamed? The same thing, judgment. And that's why so many
pulpits are barren with truth. So many churches are angry and
bitter and power hungry and stingy and selfish and maniacal and
cunning. So many leaders and so many deacons
and so many elders, so many church members, they're entitled to
something because they have not. The power of the Spirit in them
for the Word of God has been taken away. There's a famine
in the land of the church and there will not be a famine here
lest I die. by God's grace. Sola Scriptura,
the second one is this, Sola Christus, Solus Christus. Jesus
Christ alone, or Christ alone. The title, Christ means Holy,
Anointed One of God. It's not His name. It's His title. It's His essence. It's what He
is. He's the Holy, Anointed One of
God. He is the Christ. He is the holiness of God. The Heidelberg Catechism asks
this question. Do such then... It's a little
backward in its English, but just listen to the whole thing.
Do such then believe in Jesus, the only Savior, who seek their
salvation and happiness in the saints, in themselves, or anywhere
else? So what it's asking is, are those
who seek their salvation in someone else, or their happiness in something
else, are they truly those who believe in Jesus Christ? And
it answers that question. It says, they do not. For they
boast of Him in words, yet in deeds they deny Jesus, the only
Deliverer and Savior. For one of these two things must
be true, that either Jesus is not a complete Savior, or that
they who are by a true faith received the Savior, must find
all things in Him necessary to their salvation." You know what
that means? If you put your stock in something you've done to be
saved, apart from Christ alone, you can't be in Christ alone.
It's common sense. Are you in the tub, son? Yeah,
I'm in the tub. Are you bathing? Absolutely.
You go back there, it's just the foot in the tub and the foot's
clean. The rest of it's out. Now, that didn't happen. It's
just an example. Are you up? Are you out of the
bed? Yeah, I'm up. I'm awake. One
eye open, covers over your head. You're not up. You're not awake.
You might be waking, but you're not up. We can't say, yeah, I
believe in Jesus alone. And then all throughout our worship,
we hold with confidence our righteousness and the works of God in our lives.
And we know that we are a child of God because of something that
we did to effect grace. That doesn't happen. It's not
true, guys. And the reason that most people
believe that today is because the Word of God has been devoid. For there is one God, and there
is one Mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who
gave Himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given
at the proper time." 1 Timothy 2, 5 and 6. There is one Mediator. Solus Christus. One Mediator. There is not many. There is not
any helpers. There is no such thing as a sinner's
prayer that's a helper. Sinner's prayer doesn't help
you get saved. Believing, walking in the aisle, all these methods
are not helpers. If they're helpers, they're hindrances. And Hebrews
says we're to cast off anything that hinders us. But by faith,
we come to the boldness of the throne of grace that is about
Christ alone, period. Prayer, personal dedication,
personal education, personal repentance, personal response,
acceptance, belief, cognitive awareness, actions of righteousness,
walking, coming, running, opening, listening, hopping, tripping,
flying, jumping, whatever it is that we do, It is of no consequence,
no other means, but Jesus Christ can give us life eternal through
grace, through faith, which are all gifts of God according to
Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. They're all gifts of God and
that no one can boast. We ought to be saying, thank
You, God, for giving me faith. Thank You, God, for giving me
life. Thank You, God, for justifying me in Christ Jesus before the
world began and to make it effectual in my life that I might worship
You with every fiber of my being. Thank You, Christ, for taking
my sins and putting Your righteousness in me. Colossians 1, it says, He has
delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us
to the kingdom of His beloved Son. Colossians 1.13 Verse 14
says, "...in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is
the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
For by Him all things were created in heaven and on the earth, visible
and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through
Him and for Him." And He is before all things, and in Him all things
hold together. And He is the head of the body,
the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. Christ
has stepped into time, apart from the will of man, and freely
and surely and completely and certainly saved the sheep that
He has sought. No others. And He finds all that
He seeks. He seeks to find the lost. He
came that He may seek and save the lost. And all that Christ
seeks, He finds. And all that He finds, the Father
has given to Him. And all that the Father has given
Him come to Him. And they know His voice. And
they hear His voice. And they obey His voice. And
they come in and out. And they graze in green pastures.
and they're full, and they're satisfied, and they're not looking
at the horizon to extra greenery, and they're not looking back
to the old sheep pen, and they're not hoping that somebody will
come over the wall and rescue them. For those who come in other
ways are thieves, and robbers, and burglars, and the sons of
Satan. And friends, those who preach
another gospel are thieves, and robbers, and burglars, and the
sons of Satan. And you can't put it in your
heart. You can't put it in your ears. Solus Christus. Christ's work
and His life and His holiness, His righteousness is our only
hope. Grace is the giving of Jesus Christ that works to our
credit. And that leads me to this one.
Sola gratia. By grace alone. This is our hope. This is the gospel. The good
news is that we can't earn it, so we're given something we can't
earn. The good news is we can't come to a place where we can
move God to give us that. We cannot do anything except
that God freely and willfully and purposely gives salvation.
Grace is the hope of the believer. It's the power of God that gives
life to all who believe. Grace is not dependent upon the
mediators apart from Christ. Grace is not dependent upon faith.
Grace is not dependent upon the decision of man. Grace is not
dependent upon anything except the pure pleasure of the Father.
You can't tell God to give you grace, and He gives you grace.
That would make you God. You can ask Him, and you can
cry out for mercy, and you can beg, and He may listen. But if you desire grace, if you
desire Christ, if you truly love Him, and you want to be clean,
and you want to be safe, chances are God's already given you faith.
He's already given you grace. Realize it. See it at work in
your life. See it at work in your heart.
See it at work in your home and in your church. See it at work
for His glory, not for your glory. Grace is getting what cannot
be earned, cannot be accepted, cannot be considered, cannot
even be seen. Grace is given when it is not
desired. And when grace is given, new desires erupt, new hearts
are formed, new minds develop, and new life begins to live.
We become new creations in Christ Jesus. Blessed be the God and
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Ephesians chapter 1. who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even
as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and blameless before him in love. He predestined
us for adoption as sons through Christ Jesus, according to the
purpose of his will. to the praise of His glorious
grace with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him we
have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses,
according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon
us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery
of His will according to His purpose, which He set forth in
Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in
Him, things in heaven and things on earth." Ephesians 1, 3-10. And Paul says in Ephesians 3,
he says, To me, though I am the very least of all the saints,
this grace was given to me. When was it given to Paul? When
he was Saul? When he was murdering and arresting
and persecuting Christians? When he hated Christ and everything
about Him? God gave him grace and he gave him grace in order
to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to the Gentiles and
to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery
hidden for ages in God who created all things. Sola Fide. Grace alone. Sola Fide. Faith alone. This
is our means. How is it that we come to understand
and to worship? How is it that we come to see
the fullness of God's grace in our lives by faith? Through faith. Faith is receiving and resting
on Christ and His righteousness is the only instrument of our
justification, yet it is not done in the person justified,
but it is ever accompanied with all other saving graces and is
no dead faith, but worketh by love, says Westminster Confession. Paul says it in Galatians 3,
verse 6 and 11. Just as Abraham believed God
and it was counted to him as righteousness, know then that
it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the
Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by
faith, preached the Gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall
all the nations be blessed. Do you see that? Paul just said that when God
said in you, shall all the nations be blessed, that means that God
was preaching the gospel to Abraham that you might be saved. So then those who are of faith
are blessed among, along with Abraham, the man of faith, for
all who rely on works of the law are under a curse. For it
is written, Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things
written in the book of the law, and do them. Now it is evident
that no one is justified before God by the law, for the righteous
shall live by faith." Do you live by faith, church? Do you
live by faith? Everything that does not proceed
from faith is sin. How do we do that? We do that
by faith. How do we live by faith? By faith.
I trust in you, Christ. You are the only means to my
salvation. It is by faith, Christ. It is by faith, God. It is your
grace, God. Why? Why do we hurl ourselves
into this pain and this pressure and this struggle? Because it
is the greatest joy that we've ever known. To rest in the fullness
of Christ is the greatest joy that we've ever known. There
is nothing greater. Then to rest, if we don't rest
in Christ, we have to rest in something that's already dead
and dying and it's fading away. And eventually we'll stand with
crumbled nothings in our hands wondering where our hope has
gone. And the last, solely Deo Gloria. I believe, church, this
ought to be our ambition. Why? Because of everything that
I've just said. All of these things move us to
the place of knowing that we ought to live our lives, and
we should desire to live our lives for the glory of God. What
is that soli deo gloria? For the glory of God alone. I
believe it is confined to the understanding of worship, that
we live our lives, that we think with our hearts, and we love
with our hearts, and we think with our minds, and we speak
with our lips, so that God's glory may come to a place to
where we're exalting Him for that. We're praising His glorious
grace. We're worshipping Christ. We're
worshipping God. The cause of who He is and how
He has operated in our lives to give us eternal life in Christ
Jesus. And so that we are seeing the
fullness of the outcome of this salvation. which is to the praise
of His glory. We ought to worship Him. That's
why we're here today. That's why we get up in the mornings
and do our day. That's why we work. That's why
we live. That's why we pray. We want to praise God for who
He is. It is the end of our lives. It
is what we have been created for, that we might worship Christ
with all satisfaction. And I believe that all these
onlys, all these solas, If they're not foundational to a professing
group of believers that call themselves the church, then that's
probably not the church. But I do believe that these solas
are foundational to the life of a group of believers, that
they will truly live and act and worship as the church. Not perfectly, but powerfully. See, Christ is the Lord. He's
the Lord. He is the Master. He is the Owner. He's the Creator. He is the King. To Him be the glory in the church
and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and
ever. Amen. Ephesians 3.21. See, the solos
are there. These guys that create this stuff, we just pulled it
out and explained it. So whatever you eat or drink,
whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 1 Corinthians
10.31. Water, orange juice, milk, drink it for God's glory. Put
on your sock for God's glory. How? You've got to think on it. You've got to meditate on His
Word. As you're putting on your sock, you say, wow, what am I
doing? Look, God's given me socks. There are people with nothing
to wear. I have socks. And that's, I believe, surface.
What am I putting the sock on for? So I can put my shoes on,
so I can leave the house. What am I doing with my day? Where are
my feet about to take me? For what purpose am I about to
walk around? What's on my calendar? What's on my plans? Wow, this
is so mundane, but I do it as unto the Lord, so it's purposeful.
If we can't worship God in the mundaneness of life, we can't
worship Him anywhere. 1 Peter, whoever speaks as one
who speaks oracles of God, whoever serves, serve as one who serves
in the strength that God supplies, in order that in everything God
may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To Him belong glory and
dominion forever and ever and ever. Amen. Saying, Amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God
forever and ever. Revelation 7, 12. In Romans 11,
36, from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To
Him be glory forever. Amen. We sang that, didn't we? Praise to the Lord. Oh, let all
that is in me adore Him. All that hath life and breath,
come now with praises before Him. Let the Amen sound from
His people again. Let it be so, be it God, for
Your name to be made much of. Gladly for I, the word there
in the original is I, yes, we adore Him. We adore Him. That's really it. Do you adore
Him? Do you adore Christ? Do you adore the Father? Is He
greater? Children, listen to my words.
Is Christ adorable? and wonderful to you? Is He your
greatest affection? Is He your greatest joy? Does
He drive the core of everything you do and your actions? It starts here. The Cambridge Declaration, which
is a very recent document in the latter nineties, states it
this way. God does not exist to satisfy
human ambitions, human cravings, the appetite for consumption,
or our own private spiritual interests and needs. We must
focus on God in our worship rather than the satisfaction of our
personal needs. God is sovereign in worship and
we are not. Our concern must be for God's
kingdom, not our own empires, not our own popularity, and not
our own success in church. That means in the body and with
our ministries as well. We are to be of one faith and
of one Lord to the praise of His glory. Amen. Let's pray. God, it is a wonderful, wonderful,
wonderful thing to see Your Word come into our hearts and to give
us such power and joy and fullness. Father, please, through Your
power, would You put that fullness in everyone who hears these words.
Everyone who reads Your Word. Everyone who listens to Your
Word. Everyone who meditates on that Word, Father. Your Holy
Spirit is the only way that the Word will have full effect. Bring to faith those who are
dead, Father, if it pleases You. Give them faith. Help them to
see and to cherish and to be satisfied in Christ. And Lord,
help us as we continue to look at learning Christ. So that when
we get into these practical things of how Paul teaches us to live,
we're not looking at them through the wrong lens, but we're looking
at them through proper understanding of who you are and who Christ
is and whose we are in Christ. Help us to worship with all fullness,
with all joy, for your glory and for your name's sake. Amen.