I want to, let me read something
of that song we just sung. I can't remember what page 10
it was we just sung. It was, which one? In the Gatsby? Yeah. For those who are just tuning
in or watching, listening, we always have hymns that we sing
before we start. I don't know why. You post stuff
on Facebook, and I know you guys do a lot of singing. I got flagged
on YouTube for copyright stuff for singing, so I kind of quit. kind of cut them out, so, because
I have to edit everything again, so. Anyway, I don't know why
it does that, because I see everybody else, I mean, Brother Tolbert
and you guys, so I don't know why they're flagging ours, but
anyhow, for those listening, we sing hymns before we start
live streaming, and this morning, The Lord put upon my heart, sing
hymn number 283 in the Gadsby hymn. And there's a portion of
that hymn where the hymn writer, and again, this is John Newton
who wrote this hymn. And he says, if I love, why am
I thus? Why this dull and lifeless frame,
hardly sure can they be worse who have never heard His name?
Could my heart so hard remain, prayer a task and burden prove,
every trifle give me pain, if I knew a Savior's love? If I
turn my eyes within, all is dark and vain and wild. Filled with
unbelief and sin, can I deem myself a child? If I pray or
hear or read, sin is mixed with all I do. You that love the Lord
indeed, tell me, is this thus with you? And I can honestly say that yes,
that is thus with me. Just thinking about this over
the last few days, that When one comes by grace to know,
and I say by grace, for God to show us how sinful and for our
hearts to be exposed to the sinfulness of who we are is a grace of God. Some people look at that as a
bad thing, but actually I am thankful that the Lord pulled
back the curtain of my heart pulled back who I am and revealed
myself to me in truth, in unveiled vile sinfulness. And as the hymn
writer wrote there, oftentimes as children of grace, whenever
we look within, we continually see that we cannot hit the mark. Now, I know that there's religionists
out there who think that they're keeping the law. They think that
they're improving. They think that they're getting
better. They think that they're better off today than they was
yesterday. And I'm not saying that the Lord,
whenever He comes into our lives and everything like that, He
may change some things. You know, He may make a person
who was a drunk to quit drinking. Or a person who was an adulterer
quit being an adulterer. You know, He may change those
things, and I'm not saying that doesn't happen. But that is not
a sign of anything that we have been made more holy or that we
are getting on more closer to God than anything else because
I know people that are reprobates out there that are not Christians
who do the same thing. They quit drinking, they quit
drugging, they quit carousing, they quit cheating, they quit,
you know, killing, you know. Outward reformation can be done
by anybody, even to the worst degree. I mean, Jeffrey Dahmer
can quit eating people, you know? That doesn't mean that he has
gotten more holy. That doesn't mean that he has
gotten more closer to God. And so, a lot of times we hear
these things that from Churches all over the place and
preachers on the radio that, you know, if you're a Christian,
then you're going to gradually become closer and closer and
sin less and less and less and be able to control your sin and
all these things. And I have yet to find that to
be true with myself. And just like that hymn writer
say, if I, if I know love at all, why am I thus? Why am I
doing this? If I am a child of grace, then
why do, whenever I try to study my Bible and pray and meditate
upon God's Word and whenever I try to do all these things,
why is it that I feel the sin all the time in my heart? Well,
that's because God has given us grace to expose ourselves
to our unrighteousness. He has given us eyes that now
see that there is nothing but total corruption in His natural
man, and that the only righteousness that there is, is the Lord Jesus
Christ. And is Christ in you? Yes. Does Christ control our sins? Yes, I can control my sin. Because
the natural man, all he can do is sin. Everything that he does
is sin. And therefore, if I am to withdraw
or hold back from any kind of sin, it's only because the grace
of God has caused me to do that, not because I made a conscious
effort in my mind to say, I'm going to stop doing that, and
I'm going to quit doing that, and therefore, I'm going to repent
and walk away and never turn back, and I am going to... The
person that says that they can do that has yet to experience
true grace. They've experienced religion,
but they've not experienced grace. Because grace always will point
them back to their inability and always shine the light towards
Christ and His finished work. That's our only hope. Our only
hope is not in our reformation. Our only hope is not in letting
God get in business in our life. Our only hope is not us making
a change and letting God loose in our heart and squelching our
sin and crucifying our flesh and holding ourselves down so
that we can't, you know. All of that is given by God. All of that is by God. But here's the thing, even with
God working in you, He is not working in you to make you acceptable
to Him. Now that may be controversial
to many people, but God working in you is not to make you acceptable
to Him. We were acceptable to Him when
we were dead in trespasses and sin, and we were accepted in
the Beloved. The only reason we are accepted
before God is because we were united to our surety, united
to our husband before the world began. And we were chosen in
Christ before the world began. That's what makes you accepted
before God. And His finished work on the
cross, His blood, His obedience, everything that He did on our
behalf, that is the grounds on why God accepts us because we
are united to that. Not because of anything we do
here in making ourselves in a progressive holiness state or in a gradually
getting closer to God state. Do we grow in the grace and knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ? Absolutely. It doesn't say growing
in the holiness of Jesus Christ. It says growing in the grace
and the knowledge of Jesus Christ. The more that God gives me grace
to see the knowledge and the person of Jesus Christ, the more
I see that's who I need, not myself trying to make myself
better, not to make myself acceptable, that the work that God does in
me is never to make me accepted before God, but it's for me to
experience by faith what Christ did for me, who He was for me,
what He accomplished for me, and what God has accepted on
my behalf. See, faith isn't something that
gets me into action so that I can be accepted of God. faith reaches
out and says my only hope is Christ and therefore I reached
for Christ alone to only find that the grace was already given
to me so that I could see my only hope was Christ. See if
we haven't been given true grace Christ's grace, the grace of
God, a supernatural, divine grace. If we haven't been given that
grace, we will never see our need for grace. We will always
say that there is something that we have to do. Even if we believe
that we were saved by grace, there still has to be through
faith. But see, brethren, it's not through our faith. It's through
Christ's faith. It's through His faithfulness
that we were saved. And so that hymn really does
sit with me in the fact that every time I look at my advancement
in reformation of life, or, man, boy, I really Boy, I really got
some good out of the Word of God this week, man. I figured
some stuff out, you know. Boy, I was able to explain to
so-and-so and get him straightened out. Whatever the case might
be, you know. At the end of the day, whenever
I look inside, did I hit the mark? No, I didn't. Because hitting
the mark means 100% perfection all the time. And I've not hit that and I never
can hit that. So my efforts to strive, to do,
to squelch, to advance, to whatever the case might be, my efforts
in that is always going to be in vain if I am looking for that
as my acceptance or my proof of salvation. I'm always going to be let down. I'm always going to be pressed
under by the weight of sin that is in us. And as Paul said, who
is going to deliver me from this body of death that day after
day, moment by moment, continually wreaks havoc on my heart and
on my mind, showing me that all that I do, sin is there with
me? Well, the answer is Christ delivers
us from that body of death. But it's not now, brethren. This
body of death is still here. Now, we are to reckon ourselves
to be dead to sin, but that doesn't mean that we are absent of sin. We are to reckon ourselves to
be dead to sin, reckon ourselves that sin no more has dominion
over us and that Christ is not contemplating our sin anymore.
Our sin has been taken care of from the moment I came into this
world to the moment I go out of this world. Every sin that's
going to happen between those two points of Michael Smith,
the Lord Jesus Christ has taken care of that sin to remember it no more. And I
will not be held accountable for one moment of sinfulness. Because whenever we stand before
the Lord as the Lord's people, the account that will be given
is Christ alone, my righteousness. Is there any righteous man? No,
there is none. There is not one righteous man
on the face of the earth. Christ is the only righteousness
that there is. And if we don't have Him, then
we don't have righteousness. But don't confuse having Christ's
righteousness imputed to you and what people are saying, having
Christ's righteousness imparted in you. Christ's righteousness
is not imparted to us because Christ's righteousness is perfect
righteousness. And none of us have perfect righteousness
at all. Matter of fact, we have no righteousness. The only righteousness we have
is a robe that goes over me. If I stood up here completely
naked, and that would be a horrible thing for everybody, But if I
stood up here naked, this is who I am. But if I took a coat
and put a coat on and say, this is my skin, that's not true. This is a coat that was put on
me. I am not the coat and the coat
is not me. There is a separation between
me and the coat and the coat and me. The coat covers me. The coat hides my nakedness. But it is not mine. It is not
part of me. It is something that was given
to me and wrapped around me to cover what I am. Christ's righteousness,
often in the Bible, compared to a robe, is something that
covers us. so that what we truly are is
not seen. And that's not talking about
in front of people, that's talking about in front of God. Whenever
we come before God, we come in a robe of righteousness that
covers our unrighteousness. Whenever we come before God,
God sees us only in the robe, which this is an analogy, I don't
know if we'll actually have robes or not, but we probably will.
I don't know. They may be leather jackets. I don't know what they might
be. But when we come before God, we are wrapped in a robe of righteousness,
meaning that a robe covers from neck down to the feet. There
is not going to be anything exposed of us. It's only going to be
Christ. Christ covers all of our unrighteousness by His righteousness. So, impartation of Christ's holiness,
I don't see that anywhere in the Scripture, brother. I might
be wrong, but I don't see impartation of holiness, I see imputation
of holiness. laying to one's account a righteousness
outside of myself and thus a living by faith that that righteousness
is enough for God, not this righteousness that I try to do myself because
at the end of the day, it's not righteousness, no matter how
good it is. No matter how much reform I do,
it's still unrighteousness. If I feed the poor, if I help
the widow, If I shelter the orphan, if I give to the church, if I
help some preacher over in Africa, if I whatever I do, those works
are not righteous works. Those are religious works. Those
are good works in the eyes of man. And yes, they may even be
motivated by the Lord. But everything these hands touch
is tainted with sin. just as the hemrider said. They're
tainted with sin. And God does not accept those
things to make us acceptable or to keep us in fellowship and
relationship with Him. What keeps us in fellowship and
right standing and relationship with Him is the fact that we
are sons of God. That we have been adopted, that
we have been included in Christ Jesus. That's the only thing
that's keeping us accepted and keeping us in fellowship. It
isn't our right walk before God and man that keeps us in fellowship
or right standing or relationship with Christ. He is what kept
us in right standing before God. Not He working in us, but He
Himself is what keeps us in right standing because He secured all
righteousness before God on our behalf. Now, what does that have
to do with Mark chapter 2 and verse 14? Well, let's look at
a few things here. Mark chapter 2 and verse 14.
This is the story of calling... Well, here in Mark, it's Levi.
If you look at Matthew, we see that it's Matthew. But I believe
in Luke, he uses Levi as well. But this is who you know is Matthew. And of course, we all know, hopefully
we all know, that Matthew or Levi, he was a publican. He was a tax collector. He was
a Jew. who worked in the tax office
for the Romans who were taxing and taking money and excising
exorbitant amounts of money from the Jews. So he was a Jew taking
money from the Jews on behalf of their enemy. So you can imagine. I hate tax collectors in the
United States. And they are people who are taking
money from other United States people to give to Jews. But anyway, that's another story
for another day. I'm sure I won't get lots of
comments on that. Levi was a publican He was sitting
in his tax office, and here Jesus comes by and says, and as he
passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the receipt
of custom, and said unto him, follow me, and he arose and followed
him. He didn't argue, he didn't, wait
a minute, who are you? What's going on? Had he seen
Jesus before? More than likely, probably so.
Had he heard about Jesus? More than likely, probably so.
But there was, I mean, Jesus said, follow me. And he just
left his tax booth and got up and started following Jesus. And it came to pass that as Jesus
sat at meat, for you kids, that means that they sat down for
dinner. As Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans
and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples,
for there were many and they followed him. And when the scribes
and Pharisees, these are the religious leaders, when the scribes
and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said
unto his disciples, how is it that he eateth and drinketh with
publicans and sinners? When Jesus heard it, he saith
unto them, they that are whole have no need of the physician. but they that are sick, I came
not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." Now thinking on those things,
Jesus said, I came not to call the righteous but the sinners
to repentance. Now there's a couple of questions
that arise in my mind here. Number one, well, what's he talking about
he didn't come to call the righteous? Who are the righteous? Because
the Bible says there are none righteous, right? There's none
righteous, no, not one. Not one of you are righteous.
Not one of you that are watching on here is righteous. I don't
care how much obedience you think you're doing, you are not righteous. Because you have become a Christian,
that does not make you righteous. Because you have been baptized
or joined a church or quit sinning, what you think is quitting sinning,
that does not make you righteous. You are all unrighteousness. So who is Jesus talking about
here? I didn't come to call the righteous.
Were these the people who had already repented of their sin
been baptized, and come to Jesus, and accepted Jesus, and transformed
their lives, and quit going into the old world of sin, and went
to the new life of religion, and is this who Jesus is talking
about? The righteous? I've not come
to call the righteous, but the sinner to repentance. Well, Jesus knew that there was
none righteous. He's the one who said it. So, what does Jesus
mean here? Was there righteous people that
were excluded from the Gospel? And Jesus isn't going to call
the righteous? No, what's He saying here? He's drawing an
illusion for these religious men who came because before this,
they had already been boasting of a lot of their religious activities
and their fasting. What was Jesus saying? Jesus
is saying the reason that I'm going to sinners The reason that
I'm going to the sick is because only the sick need a physician.
And I'm the physician. I'm the one that's here to heal
the problem with sin, the problem with the sickness. I'm the one
that's come to do that. And the physician isn't going
out to all the well people. He's going all out to the sick
people. But you say, well, wait a minute. I thought everybody was sick.
I thought everybody was not well. I thought everybody was unrighteous.
And here Jesus is saying, I didn't come to call the righteous. So
obviously there's people out there that are righteous that
he's not calling now. No, what does Jesus mean? He means there are some who have
no need of a physician because they think that they are not
sick. They are well. And they don't
have a need of a physician. I'll give you an example. There
for a while, I was going and we didn't have insurance or anything
like that. And so I didn't hardly go to
the doctor unless it was something that was bad. I was needing emergency,
had to go to the doctor. So we didn't have a doctor. I
wasn't going to a doctor or anything like that. One Sunday morning,
woke up. Things aren't right. I had a
little drawing down on my face. Lori took me into the emergency
room. I thought I was having a stroke. Whenever I got in there,
my blood pressure was like 200 over 180, 190. And my blood sugar
was over 300. I felt fine. I didn't feel bad
at all. The only thing that concerned
me was all of a sudden, my face was kind of twitching and pulling
down a little bit. I thought, man, something is
going wrong here. But I felt good. I didn't feel
like I had high blood pressure. I didn't feel like I had high
blood sugar. I was all right. I don't need to go to the doctor.
Well, all of a sudden, then when the pulling went, then I thought,
well, maybe I need to go and have that checked out. Come to
find out, I had all kinds of things wrong with me that I didn't
even have a clue about. And I had a need of a physician,
but I didn't think I did. That's the analogy that Jesus
is using here. Just like many of us who are
wandering out there, we don't think we have anything wrong
with us. We think we're all right. We're doing okay. We're keeping
up with the Word of God and obedience to Him and all this kind of stuff.
We don't even have a clue that we are sick. There are a lot
of people, like these religious leaders, who think because of
the transformation of life and because of the outward restraint
that they are having towards certain things and a change in
life that they themselves have no need of a physician. They
did it. They listened to God and obeyed.
They turned from their sin and repented. They let God loose
in their life. They let God have control. They
give it all to Jesus. Whatever phrase you want to use. They did all those things and
now they're on with God. He's in control of my life and
he's running my life and all this stuff is going on and I'm
doing all right. These religious leaders thought
they didn't have any need for a messiah. They didn't have any
need. They thought they had a need
for a messiah. Maybe that was the wrong thing to say. They
knew they had a need for a messiah. They just didn't know they had
a need for a savior. They didn't need to know. Matter
of fact, it was even proven in the scripture that they thought
that because whenever Jesus talked about them and their salvation,
they said, we don't have any need. We don't have anything
to worry about because we're, we're Abraham's children. You're
talking about us about needing a savior. We're Abraham's children. They thought because they were
just at the line of Abraham in the flesh, that everything is
going to be okay. Jesus here laid it down as clear
as possible. You think you're righteous. These
people know they're not righteous. These are the people that I've
come to save. You say, well, how do you know
that, Pastor? Well, why don't you turn with
me to Timothy chapter 1 and verse 15. It says, this is a faithful saint
and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the
world to save sinners. And here's what Paul says, of
whom I am the chief. He didn't say, of whom I used
to be, but thanks to progressive sanctification, I'm now I'm not,
I'm not, I'm not what I wanna be, not what I, whatever that
song goes. I'm not what I once was. Paul realized I am still what
I am. The only thing that has changed
is my knowledge of the fact that I am a child of grace and that
there's laid up for me an inheritance in Christ Jesus, not nothing
that I work for, not nothing that I merit, not nothing that
I have to do, but that He has given me an inheritance because
He is my Father. He is my Savior. He is my surety. He is my helper. He is my Savior. Now, Paul knew
that he was the chief of sinners. Romans chapter 7, if you would. Paul didn't go on to boast about
how much he had changed, how much he had become better. What
did Paul say in Romans chapter 7? He says, He says in verse 18, For I know
that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good I find not. He didn't
find how to do good. He found it not. He couldn't
find how to do good. For the good that I would, I
do not. but the evil which I would not,
that I do." Now, if I do that, I would not, it is no more I
that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. He didn't say sin that
used to dwell in me. He said sin that dwelleth at
that time of him writing this. He says, I buy then a law that
whenever I would do good, evil is present. Look at verse 24. He says, O wretched man that
I used to be. No, he said, O wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from that old body of death? No, this
body of death. The one that I'm still carrying
around. The one that I'm still plagued with. The one that still
is not doing anything good or righteous. Even though I want
to do it, I can't do it. Why? Because I am still in this
natural man, and the flesh cannot do anything to please God. The
flesh profited nothing. It is to those people, those
are the ones who know themselves to be sinners, continue to be
sinners, will always be sinners. Those are the ones who Jesus
came to save. So what are you saying, preacher? I'm saying this. Whenever God
grants grace to the child of grace, they know they're a sinner. They realize they cannot do good. They realize they cannot improve
their life and make it more better. They know that there is no growth
in holiness, that it is all external. It was a holiness given to me,
not in actuality, Not in the least until we get to heaven.
Not in actuality, but indeed. Christ give that to me on my
account. It is those that Jesus came to
save. He came to save the ones who have been humbled to know
their inability to ever keep the law. Those who have been
given to understand they can never be righteous. That they
can never procure a holiness or work out a holiness. Because there is no holiness
in that. It is a substitutional holiness. A substitutional righteousness. You have the word a proxy. We
have a proxy that has been given to us. the proxies holiness that is
our holiness. These righteous men, righteous
men, quote unquote, these righteous men didn't see any need for an
external savior because they had an internal work of righteousness
that was working out in them. They were already righteousness.
They didn't need Gosh, they didn't need Christ.
That's why Paul said, you who desire to be under the
law do not hear what the law says. You who think that you're progressing
in a righteousness of your own in something that you do, do
you not hear what the law says? The law is condemning you. Every
time you try to keep the law for acceptance before God, the
law is condemning you. You didn't keep that law. Oh,
did you not drink today? Well, yeah, you did do that,
but that's not keeping the law. That's not keeping the law. You
didn't obey the law of God because if you would have obeyed the
law of God, you never would have drank. You never would have sinned. You never would have broken the
law ever. That's keeping the law. You say,
well, preacher, nobody's perfect and nobody's going to do that,
but we do. As we grow, we sin less and less. How can you sin
less and less when all you are is sin? How can you sin less
and less whenever your flesh is still with you and will not
be gone until we are torn The inner man from the outer man.
Until the Lord separates that which is born from above from
that which is born from below. Until that time happens, brethren,
you are in the flesh and everything you produce is flesh. And we need Christ. You need
Christ. We all need Christ as our substitute. not as our helper to help us
be righteous. We need Christ as our substitute
to say, here it is. And faith looks to Him, not faith
looks to Him and me. Well, He's working in me, but
I have to work out what He's worked in me. Work out your salvation
with fear and trembling. Us working out salvation isn't
working out holiness. That's not what that means. Work
out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who
works in you. Both to will and to do His good
pleasure. He's willing and doing in you
what He wants willed and done. It isn't becoming more holy Is it doing things that He wants
done? Absolutely. But that could be anything. He's
working in me to will and to do His good pleasure. That means
that everyone is being worked in to cause them to will. We talked about it last week.
God's the one who turns the heart. Whether it's to turn it for His
purposes in redemption or to turn it in His purposes of condemnation. He turns the heart. A man devises
his steps, devises his ways, but God directs his steps. Man
doesn't know how to walk his own steps, but what happens?
God directs, and it's not just his people, it's everyone. He directs everyone. Does he
direct Joe Biden? He absolutely does. directs Obama, who directs Joe
Biden? He directs everyone. When Jesus heard, he said unto
them, they that are whole have no need of a physician, but they
that are sick. For those who think that they're
growing in holiness and sinning less and less and less. Whenever I don't see that I'm
sinning, I really don't need a Savior at
that point, right? And so while we think we are
getting on with God, we're becoming less and less dependent upon
God. We used to sing that song, I
need thee, oh I need thee, every hour I need thee. Except for
when I start getting better, then I only need thee a little
bit. I need thee every hour. I need thee every hour, why?
Because every hour I am a man full of sin. Every hour, I cannot
keep your commands. I cannot keep your laws because
sin is ever present with me. When I go to do good, evil is
present. Is it evil? I've mentioned this
before. I don't think it's the little
devil on his shoulder and the little angel over here saying,
do good. No, do evil. Do good. No, do evil. When Paul said evil
is present with me. It isn't, I want to do good but
evil is tempting me to come apart and not do that. No, Paul is
saying whenever I would do good. Evil is always present. Why?
Because I am evil. I am flesh. I am corrupt and
everything my hand touches is tainted with it. Therefore, even
the good things that I do are evil in God's sight. That's why
Jesus said, I think it was in Matthew 7, that on that day that
there will be many who say, Lord, Lord, did we not do this, this,
this, this, and this? Hey, they do that. That's what the religionists
are saying. Did we not do this? Did we not do that? Did we not
do that? We followed all your prescription. We obeyed. We quit
sinning more and more. And we started obeying more and
more. And we repented and never turned
back. Really? Did you really? I don't know one person in this
world that has ever repented. In the sense that most people
use that word. Repented of their sin. and turn
to Jesus Christ to never turn back. The word repent means to
make an about face and go in the opposite direction. But I
hear the Bible saying a dog always returns to his mom. And the pig
always wants to go back to the pigsty. And so do we. We always go back to our sin.
Now it may be veiled a little bit. It may not be quite as evident. I may be able to keep it to myself. That's why Jesus looked right
through every bit of that. These exact same religious leaders
that came to Jesus condemning him for sitting with the sinners.
Look at you. You're mingling with the sinners. Why can't you be like us and
be sanctified, set apart, come out from among them? Jesus said, well, it's guys like
these who I came for. But you guys are whitewashed
sepulchres full of dead men's bones. What's
a whitewashed sepulchre? Well, a sepulchre is a tomb or
a grave, and they would paint it white to make it look good.
He said, like, all you are is dead men's bones, and you're
making yourself look good on the outside. He even gave another
analogy, I believe, one time, bro, you might correct me on
this, I may get this completely wrong, but he said something
about washing the utensils, making it all clean and everything.
You wash yourself up on the outside. He said, it's not what goes into
a man that defiles a man, it's what comes out of a man. What's
coming out of these men? What's coming out of most of
quote-unquote Christianity out there, a self-righteousness. I will this, I will that, I will
do this, I will do that, I am, I am this and that, and everything
is about me, me, what I do, we have to let God, we have to submit,
we have to pursue, we have to climb, we have to jog after the
prize, we have to Persevere, we have to do all these things.
It's all about we, us, how we are working our choices and will,
and it's all about us. Jesus said, you're all whitewashed
sepulchers. You're full of dead men's bones. You look good on the outside,
but on the inside, it's dead. There's nothing that you can
produce that's good. And yet you think you're getting
on. You're sanctifying yourself from these people, but these
are the very people that I came to save. Would you have me to remove myself
from the very people that my whole entire existence is for
their redemption? Do you want to be religious and
think that you're getting on with God with your holy living?
Again, brethren, I pray that nobody here thinks that I am
saying that we shouldn't have a desire for holy living. If you're a child of grace, you're
going to have a desire to be obedient to the Lord. You're
going to have that desire because you love the Lord. And I'm not
saying that we should just live debauchery all the time. We should
live like hell. I'm not saying that either. What
I'm saying is, In the scheme of religion, religion is just
an outward form and it does not, cannot make you acceptable before
God. Nothing that is done inwardly
in you makes you acceptable before God. And Jesus here showed these
men You think that you're whole because of your law-keeping,
your outward appearance, because of all these things. These people
here, they know they're sinners. They've come to the physician
because they know that there's nothing to heal. As a matter
of fact, I think it's in Matthew. Oh, my word. Matthew... Is it Matthew chapter 9? Parallel to this? Yes. In Matthew 9, right after Jesus
had this exchange with these, if you'll turn to Matthew 9,
verse 14, then verse 14, to the disciples of John, saying,
why do we and the Pharisees fast off, but the disciples fast on?
So right after Jesus said all that, they immediately go to,
hey, we have fasted, and we continue to fast, and why don't y'all
do it? Jesus said, can the children of the bride chamber mourn as
long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come
when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall
they fast. No man putteth a piece of new
cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill
it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse. Neither
do men put new wine into old bottles, else the bottles break,
and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish. But they
put new wine in new bottles, and both are preserved. While
he spake these things unto him, behold, there came a certain
ruler, and worshipped him, saying, My daughter is even now dead,
but come and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live. Now here we see someone who came
to Christ because he knew the only hope of healing, the only
hope of bringing her back from the dead was Christ. And Jesus rose and followed him
and so did his disciples. And on the way for him to go
to someone who was dead, on the way there was a woman which was
diseased with an issue of blood, 12 years, and in other passages,
not in Matthew, but in Mark and maybe Luke, I can't remember
now, both of them, holy cow. After 12 years of going to all
the physicians, so-called physicians, spent all the money that she
had, could not get rid of the issue of blood. She searched
everywhere, high and low, and nobody could help her. But it
says here, And behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue
of blood twelve years, came behind him and touched the hem of his
garment. Now, if you read in some of the
other accounts, you'll see that she pressed through a large crowd
of people, a multitude of people was around Jesus. And she didn't
even think of going up and just saying, Would you please heal
me? She just said, I know that if all I did was touch the bottom
of his garment, the hem of his garment, that I'll be made whole. She said, but Jesus turned him
about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort. Thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole
that hour. See, this woman had been made
or brought to the point where her only hope was Christ. She knew none of these other
physicians could help me. Nobody else can do anything for
me. I can't do anything for myself. There is no hope. There is the
only hope. Now, with that being said, don't
think that the merit of her faith was what saved her. The object
of her faith is what saved her. Christ is the one who saved her.
Christ is the one who healed her. Her faith did not heal her. Her faith that Christ could heal
her is not what healed her. The object of that faith Remember
a few weeks ago I mentioned that the Bible often talks about Christ as faith,
personifies faith as Christ. When faith has come, speaking
of Christ, He is our faith. As a matter of fact, if you get
into the spiritual aspect of this, He is our faith. He was
our faithful one. He is the one who had faith that
God looked and seen that faith and justified us because of that
faithfulness. Our justification by faith, that's
what justification by faith is. Christ exercising faith in obedience
to God and doing all things that was necessary for our salvation.
That's the faith that justifies not me trusting in Christ Jesus.
That's not the faith that justifies That's a faith that shows that
I am a child of grace, but that's not what justifies me before
God. Same thing here. Her faith in
Christ Jesus is not what actually healed her. Her faith in Christ
Jesus that He could heal her was given to her by Christ Jesus. Her faith came from Him. He gave
her the faith to come to Him because all else cannot do nothing
for them. And that's what God does to us
and what we've been talking about today. Those sinners, those publicans,
those ones who came to Jesus knew they were sinners, knew
that they were unrighteous, and came to the only hope that they
had. And the only reason they came
is because God had given them that hope. But see, the Pharisees
weren't coming to Him because they had not been given hope.
They had not been given faith. They were left to themselves
to think that they could do by their own something that only
God could do. They thought that they were going
to be accepted before God because of their choice in letting God
be God. I'm going to let God be God,
and I'm going to do everything He says, and the Lord is going
to accept me, and I'm going to be, whenever I walk in, the Lord's
going to say, well done, thy good and faithful servant. There's only one good and faithful
servant. That's Jesus. Now, praise the
Lord, when He walks in, we're going to be walking in with Him.
We're going to be united to Him. We are going to be one with Him.
and that everything that He done as a good and faithful service
is going to be laid to our account. But brethren, there is only one
good and faithful servant, and that's Jesus. And so these brethren
here, they knew they needed Christ as their only hope. I have not
come to call the righteous, those who have been made whole. Those
who think that they're whole, they will never hear the message
of Christ alone. The ones who think that they
are whole, the ones who think that they can become more holy
and quit sinning more and more, they cannot hear the message
of depravity, the message of inability, the message of Christ
as a surety. Christ is our proxy. They can't
hear that message because to them, they have not been given
hope. They have not been given the
eyes to see the issue of blood. I'm a publican. I'm a traitor
to my own people. They haven't been able to see
that I am a harlot, that I am a whatever the case may be, There
are people that see that they're those things and they transform,
but what they don't see is I am always that. I have never committed
adultery. Well, I can't say that. I've
never physically committed adultery, but the Lord says, if you've
done it with your eyes, you've done it. So I got to say that
I've done that, but I've never physically cheated on my wife,
but I'm an adulterer. I've never killed anybody, but
I've been a hater. I've never, well, I can't say
I've never stolen anything, but that too. There's a lot of things,
see, that's to my point, more to my point. See, it doesn't
matter how good we think we are, we have broken the law of God
and we can't fix that. We never can go back and fix
that. Therefore, if you've broken it
in one, you've broken it all. And if you've broken it in one,
the condemnation is you shall die. That's the condemnation.
The wages of sin is death. If you've ever broken it one
time, that's it. You have no way of making up
for it because the law is a hole. That's why Jesus was saying these
things to these brethren that were seated around him and to
the religious leaders who were coming with their accusations.
He was saying, listen, these people know they don't have any
hope because they're sinners. They've sinned. You think that
you may say that you were a sinner, but now you're not so much a
sinner. These here know that they can't get out of it. They
know that there's nothing there, so they've come to the only one
who can give them what they need, and that is a clean bill of health. Only one person can give us a
clean bill of health, and that's the great physician. And not
because he makes us clean in and of ourselves, but he gives
us that on account. Okay, I'll stop there. Anybody
have anything you'd like to add to that? Any comments? Hopefully that wasn't as scattered
as it felt. All right, anybody? Questions, comments or corrections? All right. Lord, we once again come to You
and we thank You for Jesus Christ and thank You for grace. Father,
we thank You especially for the grace of knowing our sinfulness. To many, the experience of the
hymn that we read this morning and sang, the experience of God
allowing sin and evil and trials and the flesh to overcome us
at times, To say that that is a good thing,
that is a work of grace in the heart of the child of grace,
is foreign to many people. To even think that God uses sin
and evil for his purposes is completely void in the majority
of pulpits today. And we just thank you for those
things. Because as Paul said, had I not
known that the law said this and I broke it, I would never
know grace. I would never know what it is
to know Christ and His sufficiency for me. Had the Lord never brought
me low to see my sinfulness, I would never have dependence
upon Him. Father, we know that all the
trials that You employ, all the afflictions You might bring our
way, all the chastening that we might experience in this life,
you do because you love us. That it exposes our sin, exposes
our inability, but keeps us pressing to Christ as our only hope. Looking
unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, looking
to the one who has died for us, who has forgiven us, paid the
ransom for our sin, so that we may be just before God. So Father
Lord, we thank you today. We thank you that we can come
as sinners, dead in trespasses and sins, without any merit,
without any ability, but because of your great love for us, you
have saved us. You've given us a righteousness
for unto ourselves. Lord, that cannot be taken away.
It cannot be diminished and it cannot be increased upon. So
we're thankful today once again for the work of Christ in our
lives. I pray that this has been an encouragement and a comfort
to your people. Lord, I pray that has been a
conviction to those who may be struggling with these very things.
Lord, you are the great shepherd of the sheep and you know what
they need. And so Lord, I pray that what has been spoken today
is of truth, Lord, that you might use it for your glory and your
benefit, Lord, for your praise and honor. Lord, we truly do,
this church, desire to be faithful to your word and to proclaim
the doctrine and the truths that are found in the scriptures and
to always exalt the Lord Jesus Christ and the debasing of man. So Father, Lord, we pray that
you would keep us faithful here. Lord, I pray for all these brethren.
I ask Lord to be with them as they go their way today. Throughout
the week, Lord, that you might keep them, that you might strengthen
them, and that you might comfort them by your word. And Lord,
we just pray blessings upon them. We're thankful for another day
together. What a beautiful time it is to fellowship one with
another. We do not take that for granted because we know many
of our brethren are in places where they cannot meet with others
of like faith. So, Lord, we pray that you would
in those places, bring up other children of grace, and that they
might be united with others for exhortation, for encouragement,
for worship. Father, we are so beholden to
you for all things. It's in Christ's name that we
pray.