Turn with me, if you would, to
2 Timothy. 2 Timothy chapter 1. We'll begin our reading in verse
7. Paul is writing to a young man
by the name of Timothy. And yet when he is led by the
Spirit of God to write these things, he says them to all the Lord's
people all of time. For God hath not
given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and
of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed
of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but be
thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God, who has saved us and called us within holy calling
not according to our works, but according to His own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior
Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought life and
immortality to light through the gospel. Whereunto I am appointed
a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles, for
the which cause I also suffer these things, nevertheless I
am not ashamed For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded
that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him
against that day. Hold fast the form of sound words
which thou hast heard of me in faith and love, which is in Christ
Jesus. I've called this message this
morning, Wherein Do We Differ? As we read in this chapter, Paul
was a preacher. He is a preacher, an apostle,
and a teacher. But he was different in his message
and in his method to most all in his day. And not only that, but those
who believed what he preached. Those who believed the gospel
that he taught, they also were different. And here, he encourages this young preacher by the name
of Timothy to be the same way. And amazingly, he writes this
letter from prison where he has been cast and held in bonds and
now suffered reproach for doing that. He's in prison for distinguishing
the difference between truth and error in his generation in
prison. He's there because he upheld
what he calls here the testimony of our Lord. He held it higher
than the testimony of men. He said like the old writer said,
let God be true and every man a liar. And when he did so, he
followed the example of the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom we read
in Hebrews 13, where it says, that he might sanctify the people
with his own blood suffered without the gate." Or he suffered outside
of the camp of what was known as Israel and the religion of
his day. So he follows that. saying, Let us go forth therefore
unto him without the camp bearing his reproach. Let us be where our Lord is,
and let us do as He did in this matter. Because long before that, God
had commanded Moses, and Aaron, and the Levites, the priests,
the prophets, the preachers, and people in every age to put
a difference between the holy and the unholy. It is not to
be blended together. It is not a mixture made to avoid
conflict or distinction or persecution. As a matter of fact, in Ezekiel
he says, "...and they shall teach my people the difference between
the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the clean
and the unclean. But God is often found laying
this charge against those who were supposed to do so. He says again in Ezekiel, her
priests have violated my law and have profaned my holy things. They have put no difference between
the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between
the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths,
and I am profaned among them. That is the state of religion
in our day. God, in the name of God, is profaned
among men. But that still, nevertheless,
by the grace of God, is our desire in this place. It is our desire in the messages
that are preached here, which is to distinguish between that
which is of God and that which is not. And it is not just for
the sake of being different. We always hear calls to be different,
but in reality, All that goes on in various false religions,
though each claims a distinction and difference, it's all really
the same. It's all really the same. So we seek not just for the sake
of being different, but we do in order to be in agreement with
God's Word. I want to be in obedience. I want to be in agreement with
God's Word. But that will also automatically
make us different from this godless, religious world. Now let me say also in the beginning,
I know, just like God has said, that there are some areas in
which there is no difference. There is no difference in sinners
themselves. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. And also, there is no difference
in the way that God saves sinners. He doesn't save one one way and
the other the other way. There's no difference in the
way that He saves sinners. Paul says in Romans 3, "...but
now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested,
being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness
of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all
them that believe. For there is no difference, for
all have sinned." and come short of the glory of God. He says
in Romans 10, For there is no difference between the Jew and
the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that
call upon Him." All that call upon the true God. He saves all
of them the same way. But all a false religion is the
same. It's all man-centered. And it's all works-oriented. And it's all man-glorifying. Always winds up exalting man
and abasing God. So in light of that, we must,
by the Word of God, distinguish the true Church of God, the true
Gospel of God, the true worship of God, He must be worshipped
in spirit and in truth. And we must seek, by His grace,
to distinguish the true Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so,
in trying to do so, that automatically makes us as an assembly to be
very different. We have different practices. We don't have altar calls because
we know that salvation is not in a walk down to the front of
a building. We don't give long invitations
Because it is not us who calls one to God, but God Himself. We don't beg for money. And we
don't have fund drives and sales, because we believe if God is
in it, He provides for it through His people. We don't have robed
choirs. And we don't have crosses displayed. Or any of the various other religious
paraphernalia. All the things that long, long
ago God said, you will not make unto me any graven image. All the images of idolatry. All the candles. All these things. We don't sprinkle babies. We
don't confirm young children. We seek to preach to them the
truth. And not only must they have some
natural understanding of things that are spoken, God has to give
them that real understanding. And we don't have lots of music. It's not our emphasis to have
a singing group in every other week and draw a big crowd by
music or entertainment. Our central focus is the gospel. He says it's through the foolishness
of preaching that God is pleased to save them that believe, not
through plays and cantatas. And we don't celebrate all the
various holy days that we find nothing of either mentioned or
commanded in the Holy Scriptures. And we don't have a lot of programs.
to entertain people on the way to hell, or to babysit their
children, or to counsel them though they are totally in unbelief. We don't have committees and
boards and offices and titles to exalt the flesh of men and
make distinctions among us. But these things are not the
real difference. They are because of the real
difference. And our distinction and our difference
lies in this, because we preach and believe a different gospel. Somebody says, well, there's
only one gospel. Amen. And it is the gospel of
God. It is the gospel of the grace
of God. It is the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ. And in this book, out of which
so many have distinguished what they call various faiths, this
book says there's one faith, one Lord, one Spirit, one baptism,
one gospel. And we do this because, first
of all, because we worship a different God. And I know that. You know that. Because when you
begin to tell people about God as He is in this book, they will
be quick to tell you, my God is not like that. But my friend,
if our God is not like this God, our God is no God at all. In
Deuteronomy, Moses writes concerning all the idolatry that was around
Israel, he said, our rock is not like their rock. He put our
rock in capital letters. Our rock is not like their rock
as they so willingly confess. We have a different God. We may use the same Bible. We may use the same words. But we gather the definitions
for those words from this same book. We don't put our own definitions
to them. And our God is not a statue,
or an idol, or simply a historical fact. Our God is the living God. And He acts like God. Men don't
mind a God who doesn't act like God. But our God acts like God,
and especially He saves like God. You had a millionaire invite
you to lunch tomorrow, You knew he was filthy rich, very powerful
individual, and he takes you out to lunch tomorrow, and when
it comes time to pay, he says, we'll have separate checks. What
kind of a cheap, powerless person is that? He's not wealthy. He's not rich, really. He wouldn't
act like that, and neither is a God who saves like that. You
do your part, and I'll do mine. We have a different God, and
He saves like God. And the God of our day, among
most people, is a small and frustrated, trying, crying, powerless God
who wants to do something, but He can't because men and women,
by their so-called free will, they won't let Him. They won't
let Him. I remember reading one time of
a preacher, I believe it was in Wales, and he was preaching.
And he talked about God casting men and women into hell. And
there was an old coal miner there who stood up and said, he won't
cast me into hell. And that shocked the preacher. He said, what? He said, if I can keep Him from
saving me, I can keep Him from casting me into hell. Our God isn't to be let to do
anything. Their God, it says, has done
all that He can, and now it's left up to you. And they say
things like this, give God a chance, or let Him have His way, or make
Him Lord, or accept Him, or try Him. That's a weak God. A pauper God. A worrying God. A bungling God. A beggar God. All you have to do is listen
to Him. We have a different God. And our God is this God of the
Bible, of whom it says, when Paul speaks of Christ, he says,
"...in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated
according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the
counsel of His own will." Is that true or not? He actively works all things
after the counsel of His own will. And He does it without
man's opinion, without their counsel, without their consent,
and without their help. And when Elijah stood on Mount
Carmel, facing 850 of the prophets of the groves and bales, the
prophets of their religious day, the prophets of the gods of Ahab
and Jezebel, when they had done everything they could, prayed
as loud as they could to their God, cried and screamed and even
cut themselves with lances trying to get their God to consume with
fire the sacrifice on the altar. Elijah stood up and he prayed,
I think it's 64 words. He said, how long are you people
going to halt between two opinions. That's all there is, you know. He said, if God be God, let him
be God. And that's who God is. And Gideon,
he put the distinction, he put the difference, he went into
the same type of idolatry and godless religion, and he tore
down their altars, and he cut down the trees in their groves,
and oh, it upset everybody terribly, and they were about to take his
life. But his father saw the difference. And Joash said unto all that
stood against him, Will you plead for Baal?" You're going to defend
your God? Does your God have to be defended? Will you save Him? He that will
plead for him, let him be put to death whilst it is yet morning. If he be a God, let him plead
for himself, because one hath cast down his altar." Let God fight His own fights. But they didn't do anything to
get in. Why? Because their God was no
God. No God at all. And that's the
way it was whenever the Philistines took the Ark of the Covenant. And there was no body, no Israelite
with that Ark of the Covenant. They took it and to show their
blatant idolatry and hatred and enmity against God, they took
the Ark of the Covenant and they put it in the temple of their
god Dagon. There was Dagon, the statue. And they got up the next morning
and the statue of Dagon had fallen on its face and broken an arm
off, I think it was. So they stood him back up, just
like men do, even though they don't have a statue. They're
always propping up and making excuses and helping their God
all along. But when they woke up the next
morning, the same thing had happened, and he'd fallen over again and
broken. We don't have to defend our God,
but we're set in defense of His gospel. We seek to distinguish
His gospel. It's the gospel of God. And our
God is different in that He doesn't wait on man's will. He said,
my people shall be willing in the day of my power. He exercises
His will. He acts as a sovereign, a ruler,
a king, and Lord over all. Somebody has always asked me,
what do you all mean by sovereign? Where are you, Pastor? Sovereign
grace? How do you spell that? What does sovereign mean? It
means a God who does what He will, to whom He will, when He
will, how He will, and where He will. And you have not acknowledged
that simply by saying, God can do anything He wants to. That
is only acknowledged about God when we bow before Him and believe
that He's done what He says He's done. You don't let Him do anything. Our God, the psalmist says, and
he distinguishes Him, our God is in the heavens, and He hath
done whatsoever He hath pleased. Whatever He pleased. He doesn't
need anything. He doesn't need anybody. He says, if I did need something,
I wouldn't ask you. Most of all, He saves whom He
will. Those who are in heaven will
not be there because of their will. They'll be there because
of His will. They won't be there because of
their work. They'll be there because of His
work. And he doesn't love everybody.
Somebody says, well, you ought not to talk about God like that.
The Bible talks about God like that. And men may mistake His
benevolence in giving as love, but at the same time, the Scripture
says that He hates all workers of iniquity. It says that he
hated Esau. They say our God loves everybody,
not the God of the Bible. He hated Esau. It says he hates
he that soweth discord among the brethren. It says that he's
angry with the wicked every day. He doesn't love the angels that
fell. He didn't love the people in
the flood, or the people in Sodom and Gomorrah with the exception
of Lot. He loves His people, and He's
loved them with an everlasting love. Thank God if He loves me right
now, He's loved me from old eternity, and He'll love me for an endless
eternity. And He loves them all unchangeably. He loves them all the same, because
He loves them in Christ. And He's not trying to save everybody. He's trying, and He's saving
His people. That is such a different God
from this modern day God. This God of man's traditions
and man's imaginations. And He says, you thought that
I was altogether such a one as yourself. But He's a different
God. And men and women don't find
it out before. They'll find it out when they
stand before Him. And I've been thinking about
it this week. the very evidence of spiritual death and spiritual
blindness, and the fact that it is a willful blindness, is
that men and women would not even receive in the slightest
measure any information about the God who is God. What is it
we say sometimes? I'm satisfied in my position,
don't confuse me with the facts. That's the way we are by nature.
I've got my God, I've got my little hope, I've got my little
experience, I've got my little safe spot, my little refuge,
which He calls a false refuge. I'm in my little refuge, don't
disturb me. Don't interfere with my life. Don't warn me that I'm on the
path to destruction. Don't warn me that I'm believing
and trusting in a God who's not God. Just leave me alone." That's the way a man by the name
of Ephraim was. And God said, Ephraim is joined
to his idols. Let him alone. But not only do we have a different
God, our God has a different salvation. Did you hear what
Paul says here? Paul, I know he's enabled by
the Spirit of God to do this, but he can, in one long statement,
he can sum the gospel up, the truth up. Look at what it says
in verse 9. He speaks of God who has saved
us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given
us in Christ Jesus before the world began." I could write a 100-page thesis. and not sum up what God enabled
him to say in that one long statement. And there in the context of encouraging
this young man and encouraging us to be distinct and to be different
concerning all that is outside of the truth of God, right in
the middle of it, he restates the whole of it. Our salvation is different in
that it's all of God. He says, who has saved us? Most
all of religion puts somebody to saving themselves, to working
their way to heaven, to doing their best to gain God's favor. But Paul said, it is God who
has saved us. God has done this, not He has
made us savable, not helped us to save ourselves, not made a
way to save us, not given us a chance, but saved us. He's the author and finisher
of faith. Christ is the Alpha and Omega
of salvation. Salvation, as Jonah confessed,
is of the Lord. He alone does all the saving. And He's different in this. He
doesn't set men and women out stumbling trying to find Him.
He reveals it to them. That's what a shepherd does for
lost sheep. He seeks the shepherd. He's not
waiting for a deaf, dumb, blind, dead sinner to call out to Him. He calls the sinner. And He calls
that sinner just like Christ called Lazarus in his deadness
from life, from death to life. Why in the world would Jesus
call a dead man and tell him to come forth? He wasn't able
to. But the One who called, in that
call, enabled him to, gave him the life to. And that's what
God has to do for us. And bless His name, that's what
He does. It says, He called us with a
holy calling. That is, God calls like God. He issues a divine summons. He sends forth Fetching grace. When David wanted Mephibosheth
to come to the palace where he was and to be in his presence,
he sent his servant down to that land of Lodabar, it says, and
he fetched him. He brought him. Paul says, "...moreover, whom
He did predestinate, them He also called, and whom He called,
them He also justified, and whom He justified, them He also glorified."
Start to finish, He did it all. Paul to the Thessalonians, "...whereunto
He called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of
our Lord Jesus Christ." Hebrews 9, and for this cause He is the
Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, for the
redemption of the transgressions that were under the First Testament,
they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. And then you've got in that one
little, small, single chapter book, the book of Jude. Jude begins, "...Jude, the servant
of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them that are sanctified
or set apart by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ
and called." Set apart, preserved, called. Then Peter writes, But you are
a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation,
a peculiar people, purchased people, that you should show
forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness
into His marvelous light. And our God's salvation is, as
Paul says in verse 9, not according to our work. Now you talk to
people long enough in this day, and one thing you will find is
that they do not really believe that salvation is altogether
100% free grace. they'll always start putting
their butts in. I believe that salvation is by
grace, but somebody said that's what goats
do, butt. Butt, butt, butt. My friend, if salvation in the
least part depended on you, or me, or any of the sinners, there
would not be one person saved. Not according to our works. You've seen these people standing
by the road, they've got a little cardboard sign that says, we'll
work for food. That's what every sinner by nature
does. Holds up to the world and especially
to God. We'll work for Jesus. We'll work
for salvation. That's not our God. And that's
not our salvation. Paul is saying to Titus, not
by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to
His mercy He saved us. Mercy is undeserved favor and
kindness. Paul writing to the Romans said,
But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Jesus, that
justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
We ought to work, but not to be saved. Galatians 2, Paul says,
"...knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the
law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed
in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of
Christ, and not by the works of the law. For by the works
of the law shall no flesh be justified." No flesh. By your obedience to the Ten
Commandments, by your obedience to any principle of doing, no
flesh will be declared righteous by God. And they'll stand up,
in Matthew 7 Christ says, they'll stand up and say, look what great
things we've done. But He'll say, depart from Me,
ye that work iniquity, I never knew you. Not your decisions,
not your baptisms, not your good deeds. And our salvation, our
God's salvation is different because it's according to His
own purpose. That's what it says here. It's
according to His own purpose. It's not a contingency plan.
Not an effort whereby he tries this, and if that doesn't work,
he tries this, and if that didn't work, well, finally he had to
sin Christ. Well, they rejected Christ and therefore turned against
Him, so he's got to try something else. No. His salvation, just
like every other detail in this world, is according to His own
purpose. He ordains, He predestinates,
He works. And it's different in this sense.
It's all of His grace. His own purpose and grace. His purpose and His grace are
united and they always have been. Whatever is going on in this
world right now is for two things. I don't care what it is. Number
one, it is for His glory. He purposed it for His glory. And number two, it's for His
people. He purposed it for the good,
the eternal, the spiritual, the lasting good of His people, everything. That's why it's sovereign grace. You see, man looks at sovereignty,
especially as it's associated with grace, like a dyslexic person. They look at those statements
of His sovereign grace and they see them backwards. He says,
I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And I'll have mercy
on whom I'll have mercy. They see that backwards. They
see that as God not having mercy. They see that as God not being
gracious. They see it as God not doing
something. But the truth is, he says, I
will. I will be gracious. I will have mercy to whom I'll
be merciful and gracious to. And instead of saying what men
say, which is, well, I don't like that. God can't do that. His people are saying, be merciful
to me. I need mercy. Be gracious to
me. And it's different in that our
God's salvation is in Christ. It's all in Christ. Why could we not just look at
His name and know that He is the Savior. He is all of salvation. It is only in Christ, the true
Christ, not a plan, not in the church, but it's all because
God in His great mercy imputes to us, or charges to our account,
His righteousness, so that in Him, by that, we are accounted
righteous before God. Our only righteousness is in
the Lord, our righteousness. And that's the way it is on our
best day. And bless His name, that's the way it is on our worst
day. He tells us by the Apostle John, I write unto you little
children, that you sin not. Grace will never be an excuse
for sin. Sin not. But when any man sins,
he has an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. We change. We fail. We fall. But His righteousness
never does. And He saves us as a just God and a Savior. In other words, He saves us in
such a way, not only is it right for Him to forgive us on the
basis of Christ's bloodshed for our sins as our substitute, but
it's also right for Him to bless us with all things. because He blesses us as His
sons and daughters in the righteousness of Christ. And we believe this,
that this is the record that God has given unto us eternal
life, and this life is in His Son. And not only did He give
us eternal life, but according to what Paul says here, our salvation,
our God's salvation, is before the world began. Most folks hadn't
even heard anything about that. He purposed grace to His people. He saved us in Christ. He showed
mercy to us. He blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in Christ Jesus and chose us in Christ. before the
world began. Chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world. Viewed us and wrote us our names
in the Lamb's book of life before the foundation of the world. And I thought about this verse
this week a lot. Titus 1 and verse 2. Because I was thinking about
how the Lord's people have hope. We're not wishing upon a star.
We have biblical hope. And the key characteristic of
hope is expectancy. We expect something based on
God's pledge, promise, and faithfulness, and Christ's work on our behalf. So Paul says, in hope of eternal
life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world
began." And so God is eternal. And so
everything our God does, He does all at once. And our God's salvation
keeps us. He says, "...I give unto them
eternal life, and they shall never perish." And always somebody's saying,
well, what if you do this, or what if you don't do this, or
what this... And they shall never perish. The hypocrite will die
in his sin, but they shall never perish. They're kept by the power of
God through faith. They're kept believing on. and
relying totally on the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have a different
Jesus. Everybody says, there's not but
one Jesus. Oh, Paul says quite different. He says, Preacheth another Jesus, whom
we have not preached, or if you receive another spirit, which
you have not received, or another gospel, which you have not accepted,
you might well bear with him." He said, that's my fear for you
Corinthians. But our Jesus is quite different
from the modern day one. Our Jesus didn't die for everybody. That would make Him a failure. And to imagine that anybody He
died for, to imagine that they would finally and ultimately
perish and go to hell for all eternity, is such an affront
to the justice of God What injustice would that be that any for whom
He died and paid that debt and settled that debt, that they
finally would perish for their sins? No. He saves His people
from their sins. All their sins. He gave Himself a ransom for
all kinds of people. whether they be Jew or Gentile,
but he died most exclusively and particularly and singularly
for the sheep. I lay down my life, I give my
life for the sheep. He did so voluntarily. He laid
down His life. He did so single-handedly when
He had by Himself purged our sins. He did so victoriously
because He obtained eternal redemption for us. And most especially,
He satisfied God. And he honored God. And he finished
that whole work of God. And that's why when he hung on
that cross, he said, it is finished. His work of redemption. The work
of salvation. The work of honoring God and
satisfying His justice. The work of glorifying the Godhead. The time of His humiliation. He said, it's finished. You can't
add anything to a finished work. And He's not that whosoever Savior
people talk about in our day. Our God saves whosoever will,
and only He can make us willing. He saves whosoever believeth,
and He's the only one that gives faith. He saves whosoever is
a thirst, and He's the only one that can create that thirst.
He saves whosoever comes, and no man can come to the Father
except the Father draw him. He says, whosoever seeks, and
only those seek who have been sought after. And amazingly,
we don't have a picture of Him. We don't have a picture of Him. And He's not on the cross. And
He's not just a martyr, or simply a teacher, or a great example. But He's a King. He's the King
of kings and Lord of lords. And if you and I could make Him
Lord, He'd be no Lord at all. He doesn't save everybody, but
He saves all who would be saved through the merits of Christ's
blood and righteousness as the only ground of their salvation. and his people. They're different
throughout all the ages. Abel was different from Cain.
Noah was different from his generation. Abraham was different from his
father and his people. Isaac was different from Ishmael,
Jacob was different from Esau, Joseph was different from his
brethren, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, those three Hebrew lads,
Hosea, Amos, Elijah, Elisha, Micaiah, Esther, and Mordecai,
all the prophets, all the apostles, and all of God's elect through
the ages. They are all different. My friend,
there's nothing wrong with being different in this sense. I see these young people and
I recognize a trait in them that I experienced myself. You go
up and you want to dress like everybody else and you want to
look like everybody else and if everybody gets a tattoo, you
got to get a tattoo. If everybody pierces their nose,
you got to pierce your nose and all these things. They say in
order to be different, but they're like these false religions. They're
all really the same. And they're different because
God puts the difference. I didn't make myself different.
Sometimes even I don't want to be different when the pressure
gets on. when the approval ceases, when
the shunning takes place, when nobody even really wants to hear
what I've got to say about the gospel. But Paul said, who makes
thee to differ from another? Only God. Only His sovereign
grace. And what do you have that you
did not receive as a gift? And if you received it, Why dost
thou glory as if thou hast not received it? And when God saves
a sinner, He causes them to see by faith through the gospel He
sends this different God and His different salvation and a
different Jesus. And they are brought to repent
of and forsake that false god and that idolatry and to come
out among them, and be ye separate, or be ye different, saith the
Lord." That's wherein we differ. That's
wherein I differ. And I pray that's wherein we
differ as an assembly. Father, this day we give praise
and thanksgiving to your high, glorious, holy, saving name and
persons that was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began, that you saved us and called us. according to that
purpose, that you sent your Son according to that purpose, and
He died in our room instead, and that you called us by your
gospel, by the truth, and that you keep us. We thank you and
we praise you, in Christ's name, Amen.