Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program. I'm glad
you could join us today. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to preach today from the book of
1 Corinthians chapter 1, the very opening of Paul's first
letter to the church at Corinth. We have recorded in the New Testament
two letters, 1 and 2 Corinthians. Most people believe that there
was another letter that was in between this. But these are the
ones the Holy Spirit led the church to enter into the canon
of scripture as the inspired word of God. Now today the title
of the message is Confirmed in Christ. Confirmed in Christ. So we'll just begin reading at
verse one and I'll show you what I'm going to be talking about
when we get to the verses where you see this word confirmed. To confirm and confirmed with
the past tense and confirm in the present participle tense. So it says in verse one of First
Corinthians one, Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ,
through the will of God and Sosthenes, our brother, so this Paul and
a man who was with him, a brother in Christ, riding to the church
at Corinth. Paul had been used of God to
start this church in Corinth. It's recorded in the book of
Acts, the Lord sent him to this city. It was a huge city. It was a very commercial city. It was very large, very popular,
very influential. And the Lord told Paul he had
much people in this city. And that's referring to the doctrine
of election. God chose a people before the
foundation of the world, gave them to Christ, and Christ came
to die for their sins, to obey unto death the law of God and
to settle the justice of God, bringing forth righteousness
for them. And what I'm going to be talking about here, the
confirmation of that to each one of God's elect comes when
the Holy Spirit brings them under the gospel to hear it and to
believe it by the regenerating power of the Spirit. It's when
He gives us eyes to see and ears to hear. He imparts spiritual
life because by nature we're spiritually dead. By nature,
we will not receive and believe the message of the gospel and
come to Christ. John 1 and verse 12 and 13 tells
us that as many as received Him, to them gave the right or the
privilege to become or to be called the sons of God, even
to those who believe on His name, which were born not of blood,
that is, not of physical genealogy, physical pedigree, nor the will
of the flesh, which I believe is the works of the flesh, nor
the will of man. In other words, the new birth
does not come about because you of your own will choose to believe
in Christ. He says, but they're born of
God. God brings the new birth by the power of the Spirit under
the Gospel as He teaches us and leads us to Christ. And then
He makes us willing in the day of His power. He gives us the
will to come to Christ. Because we don't have it by nature.
We're spiritually dead. We fell in Adam. That's what
that's all about. Our fallen Adam left us in a
state of sin and spiritual death and depravity. And even though
we can attain religious works and even morality as measured
by men now, not by God, but by men, we can attain to that, but
we will not come to Christ. And he says that over here in
1 Corinthians, the mark of spiritual death And depravity is in verse
18 of 1 Corinthians 1. Look at that, 1 Corinthians 1,
18. For the preaching of the cross,
now that's the gospel of the glorious person and the finished
work of Christ, is to them that perish, or literally are perishing
in a state of perishing, foolishness. When you hear the gospel, how
do you respond and react to it? Well, if it's foolishness to
you, or if you don't believe it, that's what he says, you're
in a state of perishing, unbelief. But he says, but unto us which
are saved, or literally being saved, that is being kept by
the power of God, it is the power of God. And he goes on to describe
how the preaching of Christ and Him crucified is both the power
of God and the wisdom of God. Remember Paul wrote in Romans
chapter one and verse 16, he said, I'm not ashamed of the
gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to
everyone that believe it, to the Jew first and the Greek or
the Gentile also. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the justified
shall live by faith. Well, how do I know that I'm
justified before God? Well, first of all, what is it
to be justified? Well, it's to be forgiven of
all my sins on a just ground, and there's only one just ground
upon which God forgives sins, and that's the blood of Jesus
Christ, His death. Having the sins of His elect,
His sheep, His church, all who believe, their sins were charged,
accounted, reckoned to Christ. And He came and He substituted
Himself as our surety and died for those sins, paying the debt,
redeeming us by His blood. And so those who are justified
are forgiven of all their sins, not because of anything they
did or do or anything they decide. It's because of the blood of
Christ. Now, those who are saved by the
grace of God, they do a lot of things that are honoring to God. That's the good works unto which
God has ordained them. But they're not saved by those
good works. They're not forgiven based on
those works. They're saved and forgiven by
the grace of God based on the blood of Christ. And then to
be justified is to be declared righteous in God's sight. And
that's the legal imputation, charging, reckoning, crediting
of Christ, the merits of Christ's obedience unto death, which is
called the righteousness of God, to the persons of His elect.
Now, and that's on a just ground, the righteousness of Christ,
the obedience unto death of Christ, the merits of His obedience unto
death. Now, how do I know For example, that I'm justified. How do I know that I'm one of
God's Christ's sheep, one of His elect? Well, let's go on
in our text here. First Corinthians chapter one,
verse two. unto the church of God, which
is at Corinth. Now the church, the word church
means called out ones. So it's those who are called
out by the Holy Spirit under the preaching of the gospel.
They're called out of the world and called into the family of
God, the church. And on earth, the church, the
true church is made up of professing believers. who know and believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now there can be false professors
in the church here on earth. And we see that all through the
scriptures. John spoke of it in 1 John chapter two, when he
spoke of those who went out from us. I think it's in verse 19. They went out from us, but they
never were of us. Had they been of us, part of
that group of sinners whom God say, had they been of us, they
would no doubt have remained with us. And we're gonna see
that in this confirmation that I'm talking about, confirmed
in Christ. So he says, under the church
of God, which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in
Christ Jesus, they are set apart in Christ. Now when were they
set apart? The Bible says in Ephesians 1
and in 2 Timothy chapter 1 and so many other verses that they
were set apart before the world began. The Bible says their names
were written in the Lamb's book of life before the world began. They were set apart. God chose
them. Gave them to Christ. And it says in verse two here,
they're called saints or called to be saints. That's that heavenly
calling, that invincible, irresistible calling of grace by the Spirit
to be saints. Now, what is a saint? A sanctified
person, one who is set apart. So having been set apart before
the world began in divine electing grace, And then, having been
set apart by Christ on the cross as he died for their sins and
established righteousness for them, they must, of necessity,
as the fruit of God's grace in Christ, the redemption that Christ
completed on the cross, as a result of that, they must be separated
out of the world by the calling of the gospel. called out ones. And that's what separates the
people of God from the world. It's not religious traditions. It's not taste, not touch, not
handle, not. It's the gospel. What we believe
and we're looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith. So called to be saints. And it says, with all that in
every place, call upon the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, both
theirs and ours. So just like believers in other
places in the world, the Corinthians were called out unto Christ. And just like the believers at
Ephesus, the believers at Colossae, the believers at Thessalonica,
the believers in Rome, the believers in Galatia, the believers in
America. See, we're all brethren in Christ,
all who are called out by the true gospel. And let me caution
you now. Don't automatically assume that
means that we're brothers. Because what gospel do you believe? That's the key. If you believe
a false gospel, you're not my brother or sister in Christ.
I believe the true gospel as it is written in the Bible. Paul
wrote that to the Galatians in Galatians chapter one. He said,
if they come preaching any other gospel than that which we have
preached, let them be anathema. In other words, to believe a
false gospel is to be cursed, not blessed. So understand that,
and the gospel is determined by the doctrine of Christ, who
Christ is. He's God, manifest in the flesh. God-man, fully God and fully
man. And then, what did he accomplish
on Calvary when he died for the sins of his people? He did not
make his people, put it this way, he did not bring about a
mere possibility of salvation. when He died on that cross, conditioned
on what they would do. No. Christ secured the eternal
salvation of all whom the Father had given Him before the world
began and all for whom He died. And He calls them His sheep.
My sheep, he said, the good shepherd died, giveth his life for the
sheep. And he said, my sheep hear my
voice and they follow me, John chapter 10. Well, what is his
voice? It's the preaching of the gospel
and the power of the Holy Spirit. So understand that, see, what
you need to do, what I need to do, all of us, we need to get
into the scriptures. to understand and know what the
true gospel is as opposed to false gospels. And I'll tell
you, I'll give it to you, I can give it to you in very simple
terms, that all false gospels have basically two things in
common, you might say. And the first thing is salvation
conditioned on sinners. See, they make salvation in some
way, at some stage, to some degree, conditioned on you. What you
do or what you decide. All of that. That's a false gospel. The true gospel preaches salvation
conditioned on Christ alone. who by his obedience unto death,
as God manifest in the flesh, as the surety, the substitute,
and the redeemer of his people, fulfilled all the conditions
of the salvation of his people to secure their salvation. And
they are known as the, he sends the Spirit to bring them under
the true gospel and to believe it. He gives them the gift of
faith. I've preached on that so many
times. I've quoted this verse, for by grace are you saved through
faith, that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. So the false gospels make salvation
conditioned on the sinner and not on Christ and him alone.
The second thing that all false gospels have in common is they
measure righteousness, holiness, and goodness on a sliding scale. In other words, somebody says,
well, I may not be perfect, but I'm good enough or I've done
enough. Well, my friend, that's a false
gospel. You and I, as sinners, can never
do enough to save ourselves. We cannot do it. But the true
gospel measures righteousness by the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is the standard of righteousness. The Bible says in Acts 17 31,
this is another verse I quote so often, that God has appointed
a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by
that man whom he hath ordained. in that he hath given assurance
unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." Christ
is the standard of righteousness. And for me to do enough to be
saved, I would have to be as righteous or as good as Christ. And I cannot do that. I'm a sinner.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So then
how can I be saved? in righteousness if I don't have
it in myself. Romans 3.10 says that. There's
none righteous, no, not one. That's in ourselves. We must
appear before God, found in Christ, in his righteousness, imputed,
charged, accounted, given to us. so that we stand before God
washed in His blood, clothed in His righteousness, and that's
our salvation. That's what Paul wrote in Philippians
3, that I may be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith or
the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, the righteousness of God, which
is by faith. Now we receive it into our minds,
the knowledge of it by God-given faith. So go back now to our
text, 1 Corinthians 1. He says in verse 3, Grace be
unto you, and peace from God our Father, from the Lord Jesus
Christ. Look at it, he says, I thank
my God, verse 4, always on your behalf, for the grace of God
which is given you by Jesus Christ, See, grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Grace is not God giving
you a leg up. Grace is not God helping those
who help themselves. Grace is not making you savable. Grace is the complete salvation
of all the elect of God for whom Christ died, the complete salvation
of every one of them based upon the blood, the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he says in verse five,
that in everything you are enriched by him, in all utterance and
in all knowledge, you're enriched by Christ in what you believe
and preach and what you know. Because it's the revelation of
God to his people. wherein he teaches us through
the gospel in the doctrine of Christ how God saves sinners. And there's only one way. And
that's the way of his grace and mercy in Christ. So he says in
verse six, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you. Now, how was it confirmed? Now,
the confirmation of it is just the reality of the power of the
testimony of Christ. The testimony of Christ being
confirmed in God's people is not that His testimony, which
is the gospel of His glorious person and His finished work,
it is not His testimony being made successful by us. You know, a lot of people today,
they talk about how God loves everybody and Christ died for
everybody, but it does you no good unless you add your faith. That is not the gospel. That's
a false gospel. That's a false way. Again, that
makes salvation conditioned on sinners and not on Christ alone. And so, the confirmation of it
is simply this. Christ said it this way in John
6 and verse 37. Another verse I quote quite often
on this program. When he said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. They're gonna come to him. And
the confirmation of it is the power of it, the result of it,
that is made known by a sinner being brought to Christ in the
new birth by the power of the Spirit to believe in Him, to
repent of their dead works and idolatry, both which are gifts
from God. Faith is a gift. Repentance is
a gift. And that message of God's grace,
which is successful, not because we believe it, but because Christ
died on that cross, He obeyed unto death, and because He said
it, That testimony is confirmed when God brings His people to
see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ through the preaching
of the gospel. You're confirmed in Christ, He
said. Confirmed unto salvation. The
confirmation of it. Is what God has purposed, what
God has planned, what God has willed, and what God has intended,
is it true? Well, sinners believe on Christ. Now, not everybody believes.
Isn't that right? Multitudes turn away from it.
But that marks no failure on God's part. It's no failure on
Christ's part. That's simply the fact that God
has not given everybody the gift of faith. Let me show you this
in the book of 1 Timothy chapter three and verse 16. Now he's talking about the church
here, the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of
truth. And he says in 1 Timothy 3.16,
without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness God
was manifest in the flesh. That's Christ the God-man. Justified
in the Spirit. Christ died for the sins of His
people. He was buried. He arose the third
day. So He Himself was justified in
that sense because the sins of His people were charged to Him.
He put them away by His death. He paid for them. He paid the
debt in full. We sing a hymn about that. Jesus
paid it all, all to him I owe. Some versions go, Jesus paid
it all, all the debt I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
he washed it white as snow. So he paid it all. And then it
says, seen of angels, the testimony from heaven, preached unto the
Gentiles, and believed on in the world, and then received
up unto glory. the testimony of Christ confirmed
in you. Go back to first Corinthians
six and look at verse seven now. So that you come behind in no
gift, all the gifts of God in Christ given to every one of
his people by his grace, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that is revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then
look at verse eight. Who shall also confirm you unto
the end that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus
Christ. The testimony of Christ is confirmed
in his people, not only by initially bringing them to faith in Christ
and repentance in the new birth, but by preserving them throughout
so that they cannot lose their salvation. If they could lose
their salvation, his testimony would not be confirmed. You know,
he said, in John chapter 10, he said, no one can pluck them
out of my Father's hand. He said, I and the Father are
one. In John six, not only did he say, all that the Father giveth
me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me, I will in
no wise cast out. He says this, he says, this is
the will of him that sent me, that of all which he hath given
me, I should lose nothing, but raise it up at the last day.
So the confirmation of a sinner being confirmed in Christ is
the success and power of the work of Christ testified of in
the gospel. And it's confirmed, not only
does he save us, his people, he preserves us, he keeps us. And that's his preserving grace.
We talk about perseverance of the saints, continuing. And the Bible teaches that, that
by the grace of God, all who are truly saved will persevere,
will continue to the end. And if anyone claims to believe
the gospel, the true gospel now, and then leaves it, apostatizes
from it, then what does the Bible tell us? They were never saved
to begin with. They never had been born again.
Once you're born again by the Spirit, you cannot be unborn,
you see. And that's the case. Those who God saves, He saves
forever. So not only does He initially,
by His grace and power, save His people, He also preserves
them unto the end, and He will not let them go. His honor is
at stake there. So he says he will confirm you
unto the end, verse eight, that you may be blameless, not guilty. Standing before God, not guilty.
Romans 8 and verse 32, who shall lay anything to the charge of
God's elect? It's God that justified, who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died. Yea, he
rather is risen again and seated at the right hand of God, ever
living to make intercession for us. And he says in the day of
our Lord Jesus Christ, that's the day of judgment. And he says
in verse nine, God is faithful. by whom you were called under
the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." God is faithful. He's faithful. That's the key.
Now, we're commanded to be faithful, but our faith varies, and our
faith is yet imperfect. We're struggling here. But God
is always faithful. He is faithful that called us.
He will not let us go. He will not charge us with sin.
He charges His people with the righteousness of God. And that's
confirmed. All of that's confirmed in Christ. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2-1. Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia
31707. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.