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 today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching from the Book of
John, the Gospel of John, Chapter 15. And the title of the message
is Christ Against the World. Christ Against the World. And
here in this passage, the Lord Jesus Christ informs his disciples
of some very, very serious and sobering truths. that every true
believer in every generation has had to face. And that is
the relationship of a sinner saved by grace and the world. And when we're talking about
the world here, we're talking about the unbelieving world. The world as it is fallen in
darkness and under the curse of the law, the curse of God
because of sin. And this is a world of which
we are all by nature a part of. But what happens in the case
of God's people, the elect of God, the sheep of Christ, the
true church, is having been chosen by God and given to Christ, having
been justified before God by His grace through the blood and
righteousness of Christ, having been redeemed by Christ on the
cross, redeemed because Christ is our surety, our substitute,
our redeemer, and being preserved by Him, and then eventually at
some appointed time, a time appointed of God, Christ sends the Holy
Spirit to bring us under the truth of the gospel. Before that
time, most of us are under a lie of the world, of false gospels.
And what happens, this is where we are born again by the Spirit,
under the preaching of the gospel, where He stamps the truth of
Christ and His salvation that God freely and fully provides
for His people in Christ, the Good Shepherd giving His life
for the sheep. He stamps that, seals it in our
minds and our hearts in the new birth and calls us out of the
world. Out of the world, that is out
of fellowship with the world in its lies. Now, we have to
understand now, when we're talking about the world, in its spiritual
darkness as an enemy of Christ and His people, we're talking
about even the religious world and if you don't understand that,
you're going to miss the whole truth of the scripture. When you speak of the fallen
unbelieving world, you're not just talking about people that
man by nature sees as immoral. lawbreakers or criminals. Now
those, they are part of the world, but we're also talking about
the best that the world has to offer. Christ, or in the book
of 1st John, chapter 2, John was inspired to tell the believers
there to don't love the world. And how do you reconcile that
with passages which says, love our neighbor as ourselves. And
our neighbor, realizing that our neighbor includes our worst
enemy. Even our enemies. The Bible tells
believers, love your enemies. Christ told his disciples in
the Sermon on the Mount, he said, pray for them that wrongfully
accuse you and despitefully use you and criticize you. Don't
just, it's nothing to love your friends, but love your enemies.
Well, what he's talking about there is not fellowship, unity
with the world. Believers, sinners saved by grace,
are not in fellowship with the world. Yet we are to pray for
their salvation. We're to pray for their wellbeing.
Love your neighbor as yourself and you don't have the privilege
of picking and choosing your neighbors. Your neighbor is every
individual. Christ taught that in the parable
of the Good Samaritan. that those who say, well, I can
love someone here because I'm related to them or they are good
to me, but now my enemies, I have a reason to hate them or it's
right to hate. No, but that doesn't mean that
we look upon them as brethren in the faith. You see what I'm
saying? And you've got to make that distinction.
Love not the world, nor the things in the world. And that's not
just talking about materialism. Now, Christians, true believers,
are not to be materialistic in the sense of loving the things
of the world more than they do the things of the Lord. They're
not to be tied to this world like that rich man who built
barns and filled up his barns. And he said, now what am I gonna
do? Well, I'll just build bigger barns. And Christ said, tonight
thou fool, tonight your soul shall be required of thee. And
you say, that's somebody who this world is their God. Well,
that can happen. But we have to understand this.
Look at what he says, this is in John 15. When Christ speaking
to his disciples back up in verse 16, he says, you have not chosen
me, but I've chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring
forth fruit and that your fruit should remain, that whatsoever
you ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you. Talking
about salvation and the gospel ministry there now, not making
God a genie in a bottle that you can get whatever you ask
for anytime. As to what that means. But He
says, I've chosen you. God's people are chosen by God. Left to ourselves, we would not
choose Him. And then He says in verse 17,
these things I command you that you love one another. Love not
the world, but love one another. Now here's the distinction we
have to make if we're going to understand the scriptures. We
are to love our neighbor. as ourselves, even our worst
enemies, not in the sense of telling ourselves that we're
in fellowship with them religiously. We're not. We're separated from
them. If you're saved by grace, you're
separate from the world. But remember what Christ told
his disciples, you're in the world, you live here, but you're
not of the world. In other words, you're not in
fellowship with the world. You have a message that the world
does not believe. And that's talking about fallen,
unregenerate people. Again now, of which even believers
were a part by nature. I was part of the world, but
I've been called out of the world by the power and the goodness
and the grace of God. It wasn't my free will choice,
as people say. I didn't come out of the world
and into the kingdom of God because I was a better person than those
who refuse. No, it was totally by grace,
undeserved, unearned. And God changed my mind, my heart,
my will. He made me willing in the day
of His power. So he brought me into fellowship
with the people of God and out of fellowship with the world.
But now look what he says here. Now the title of the message,
Christ Against the World. When I say Christ against the
world, I'm talking about Christ and his people against the world. Verse 17 says, these things I
command you that you love one another, verse 18, if the world
hate you, And that word if is not if they do, because the world
will hate you. It could be translated since
the world hate you. So if the world hate you, you
know that it hated me before it hated you. The world hates
you. Christ and His people because
they hate the message of Christ and His people. Now let me be
clear on this. Now that hatred does not always
reveal itself in anger to the point of somebody wanting to
kill you or wanting to throw stones at you. Now sometimes
it can flare up into that kind of thing. But hatred here is
a firm stand against Christ and his people, his church, and their
message. Hatred can reveal itself just
in unbelief. Somebody says, well, look, you
know, I'm not going to argue with you. I just don't agree
with you. I don't want to hear what you
have to say and walks away. And they may be kind to you. They may, they may help you out
in other areas, but when it comes to your religion, if it's the
religion of grace, the gospel, they want no part of it. That's
hatred. Christ said in another passage,
he said, he that is not for me or with me is against me. So what I'm telling you today,
as I reach into the scriptures and bring out the truth of the
scriptures, it may not make you angry. It may, it may make you
angry. But if you walk away from it
in unbelief, you hate it. Now that's the truth. And this
is, he said again, verse 18, if the world hate you, you know
that it hated me before it hated you. If the world hated the master,
the world's gonna hate the servants of the master because you line
up with him. What he says, you say. What he
says, you believe. His testimony is your testimony. And if it's not, you're a false
professor. If you compromise, if you claim,
if you hear the message of truth in the gospel of how God saves
sinners, totally by His grace, not conditioned on sinners, but
conditioned on Christ and on Him alone, His blood alone, which
saves His people from their sins, His righteousness alone which
justifies all of His people. If you claim to believe that
but you compromise it in order to gain the favor of the world,
those who don't believe it are ignorant of it, then you're a
false professor. We follow Christ. Look at verse
19 of John 15. He says, if you were of the world,
if you were in fellowship with the world, If you agreed with
the world, the world would love his own. The world would not
hate you. If you can speak peace to the
world, but because you're not of the world, now you're in the
world. You live here on this planet. You have to work with
unbelievers. You may have unbelievers in your
family. You may be married to an unbeliever.
But you're not of them, you're not in fellowship with them,
you're out of step with the world. You believe a message that the
world hates. But I have chosen you out of
the world, therefore the world hateth you. When we preach election, much
of the world hates that. You mean God only saves a few
people? Well, he saves whoever he wants
to save. The Bible teaches that. Everywhere. God's chosen people. He chose
them, put them in Christ. But it's not your business to
try to figure out if you're one of them or not. Your business
is to believe the word of God. My business is to preach it to
whoever will listen to it. And whoever listens to it, your
business is to believe it. And if you're one of God's elect,
you will at some point in time. But let me give it to you this
way. What is it about this message that sinners hate? Well, let's
read on a little bit. I'm gonna get to that. He says
in verse 20, remember the word. that I said unto you, the servant
is not greater than his Lord. If they persecuted me, they will
also persecute you. If they have kept my saying,
they will keep yours also." Now, see what he's basing this issue
of love and hatred on? It's not what he did. Christ
was not hated and crucified because he healed people. He wasn't hated
and crucified because He was kind to people. He was hated
and crucified because of His message. Kept my saying, see,
verse 21, look at it. But all these things will they
do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not Him that
sent me. Christ spoke of the Father who
sent Him, and He spoke of the message of salvation. and they
didn't like it. And especially the religious
majority hated it. But listen to verse 22. He says,
if I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin. Now he came and he spoke to people. who did not believe that they
were sinful enough to be condemned. Religious people, the Pharisees,
the Sadducees, the scribes, the people who followed them, who
would say, well, you know, I may not be perfect, but I've not
done anything bad enough to go to hell. And Christ looked at
him and said, oh no, oh no. If you're seeking to be saved
by your works, you deserve to go to hell. And if he had not
come and said that, well, they would have gone on in their deception.
What he's telling us is the gospel of God's grace exposes their
sinfulness, their depravity, and the fact that we all by nature,
based upon our best works, deserve hell. the best of us, the worst
of us, and everybody in between. And that's the message that sinners
by nature hate. I remember when I hated it, when
I first heard it. The Bible says, the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he
know them. They're spiritually discerned. See, that's the thing
about it. If left to ourselves, to our
own wills, so to speak, We would continue to disbelieve it, hate
it, stand against it. But he says in verse 22, but
now they have no cloak for their sin. They have no hiding place
for their sin. He told them, you think your
works are good enough to make you right with God. You think
your works are good enough to make you righteous enough for
God to be pleased and to bless you. But he says, your works
are evil deeds. Evil deeds. And you cannot be
saved by your works. You know, there's two things
that are common to all false religion, even false Christianity. Here's the first thing. False
Christianity and false religion will always make salvation conditioned
on sinners, on people. in some way, to some degree,
at some stage. That is a lie. If salvation,
you know, people today, they say, well, God loves everybody.
Well, the Bible doesn't say that. Now you wanna, people by nature
wanna believe that because they think by nature we're lovable,
but we're not. God's hatred. is his justice
against sinners to whom sin is charged. And that's why the psalmist
wrote in Psalm 130 verse three, if thou Lord shouldest mark iniquity,
who would stand? For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. And what is the glory of God?
It's the glorious person and finished work of Christ. If my
works do not equal the perfection of righteousness that can only
be found in Christ, it's evil deeds. So if you believe, people
say, well, God loves everybody. Christ died for everybody. Now
the rest is up to you. That's a lie. Now, I just spoke
that to you. How do you feel about it? Are
you against it? Read your Bibles. Look over in the book of John
chapter three. This has already been dealt with
in John chapter three. Look at verse 18 of John chapter
three. It says, he that believeth on
him believeth on Christ. Now to believe on Christ is more
than just saying, well, I accepted Jesus as my personal savior.
Is the Christ that you believe in, trust in, base your salvation
on, is he the true Christ of the Bible or is he a counterfeit?
Well, the true Christ of the Bible is both God and man in
one person. There are many people who call
themselves followers of Jesus or call themselves Christian,
who either deny his deity or his humanity or both. That's
a lie. They're of the world. There are
those, and then secondly, not only in his person as God meant,
but what did he accomplish when he died on the cross? Did he
make sinners savable? If sinners would do their part,
make the right decision, do the right thing. If that's true,
then we're all doomed. That's a lie, see? The Bible
says, his name shall be called Jesus, for he shall save his
people from their sin. The ones for whom Christ died
are called his sheep. They're called the elect. They're
called the ones that the father gave him before the foundation
of the world. And he said, all that the father
giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me, I
will in no wise cast out. Salvation is based upon the righteousness
of Christ, freely imputed to His people, charged to His people,
and it guarantees the salvation of every one of them. And who
are they? They are those whom God gave
to Christ, whom He justified, whom He redeemed, and whom He
calls out of the world. So look back at John 3, 18. He
that believeth on Him is not condemned, Why are we not condemned? Because we made the right choice?
No, because Christ died for my sins. His blood took away all
my sins. I'm redeemed, bought with a price. I stand before God forgiven of
all my sins. based on the blood of Christ.
God will not charge my sins to me. The Bible says in Romans
8, 33, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died. Yea, rather
is risen again, seated at the right hand of the Father, ever
living to make intercession for us. If Christ died for me, I
cannot be condemned. There is therefore now no condemnation. to them who are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
And to walk according to the Spirit is to walk in faith, God-given
faith. That's not natural to us. God-given
faith in Jesus Christ. And so that's the issue. He says,
but he that believeth not is condemned already. It doesn't
matter who you are or what you've done or what you're trying to
do or what profession you may. If you don't know Christ, If
you don't believe this gospel, you're condemned already because
he has not believed on the name of the only begotten son of God.
His name identifies him and distinguishes him in the word of God. We'll
look at verse 19. And this is the condemnation
that light is coming to the world, the light of the gospel, the
light of truth, and men love darkness rather than light. By
nature, we love darkness. Why? Because darkness enables
us to cloak or hide our sins from ourselves. The fact that
we deserve condemnation based upon our best efforts to serve
God. There's only one way of salvation.
That's the obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus Christ, not
our works. And any person who's trying to
work their way into God's favor, the light of the gospel exposes
it this way, darkness rather than light, because their deeds
were evil. What deeds? Their efforts to
keep the law. Those are evil if they're aimed
at salvation because they deny the glory of God. They deny Christ. They're a matter of pride. If
you think you can work your way into salvation, that's pride. You see, when God saves a sinner,
He brings that sinner down in humility. Lord, be merciful to
me, the sinner. If you will, you can make me
clean. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark
iniquities, who would stand? And verse 20 says, in John 3,
for everyone that doeth evil, hateth the light, neither cometh
to the light, lest his deed should be reproved. His deeds should
be made manifest at what they are. Remember Christ in Matthew
7, verses 21 through 23, when those stood before Him at judgment
and pled what they thought that God enabled them to do in the
name of Christ. We've cast out demons, we've
done many wonderful works, we've preached in your name, only to
hear Him say, depart from me, I never knew you, you that work
iniquity. You see, my best efforts, Let
me put it to you this way. I should be engaged as a child
of God, as a sinner saved by grace, I should have my whole
person, my whole being, my whole heart engaged in trying to be
like Christ, to love like He loved, to obey like He obeyed,
to speak as He spoke, to obey the word of God, I should never
take a casual attitude towards sin. I should fight sin with
every part of my being. But all that I do, my best efforts,
my fight against sin, will not equal the perfection of righteousness
that can only be found in Christ. And that's the righteousness
that I'm going to be judged by. God has appointed a day, Acts
17 31. 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 has given assurance unto all
men and that he has raised him from the dead. Now, do you love
that message or do you hate it? That's what you've got to understand
from this word. Christ said, if I hadn't come
and spoken, they wouldn't know this, but now they've heard it. and they turn against Him, they
turn against His people. The world hates. This is Christ
against the world. And there's no other way. There's
no middle ground here. 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 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia 3-1-7-0-7. Contact us
by phone at 229-432-6969 or email us through our website at www.TheLetterRofGrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.