Gracious God, we're so thankful
this morning for your love and your mercy that we just sang
about. We're thankful for the grace of God. We're thankful
for the blood of Christ that forgives us of our sins. We're
thankful for your sovereign grace that can take out our hearts
of stone and put in a heart of flesh. We're thankful for drawing
us, for calling us, for bringing us to you, for giving us the
gospel, giving us faith to believe in you. giving us a hope in Christ
Jesus. Father, without these things
being given to us freely by your grace, we would never have come. We would never have known you.
And so we are so grateful today for your sovereign grace. Father,
we just are grateful today that we have an opportunity together
once again. And we're thankful, Lord, for
the word of God that you've given us to be able to study and to
preach and to read, to know more about you. And we pray this morning.
that the Holy Spirit of Christ would come and that he might
teach us this morning, Father, that he might give us ability
to worship you rightly, that our hearts and our minds might
be uplifted in joy and in praise to our God, and that we might
be pleasing to you in all that we do and
say and what we preach and what we sing and how we fellowship,
Lord. I pray that these Brethren that
are met here this morning, Lord, I pray that you might edify them
by your word this morning, that you might teach them, instruct
them, grow them in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Father, I pray that you would
help me to preach. May you give me clarity of voice.
May you give me clarity of speech that I might be able to preach
the truth of God. And Lord, I pray that it would
be true. I pray, Lord, that you would keep me from any erroneous
statements. Lord, they might come from man's wisdom or tradition,
but Lord, may I only speak those things which come from your word.
And Lord, I pray that it might be a benefit to this congregation,
that we might grow by it, that we might be blessed and benefited
by it. Lord, that we might lift our
voices even higher to you for what you have done for us. and
what you've given us and this salvation. And may it be glory
to your name and your name alone. For it's in Christ's name that
we pray, amen. Well, last week we looked at
verses 16 down through verses 19. And we mainly was looking
at verses 16 and 17. And I did kind of, go over just a little bit, very
briefly, 18 and 19, but we mainly stayed within 16 and 17. This
morning, I would like to pick back up and move back into 19
before we go into 20 and 21, remembering again that Paul is
making an argument for justification by faith. And if you remember, Peter had come to the church
there in Galatia and was fellowshipping with that church. And whenever
some Jews came, he slinked back into the Judaizing aspect of
things, the very things that this church was struggling with. And so whenever Peter came, he
distanced himself from the Gentiles whenever those Jews came. Paul
caught on to that. and some others that were falling
away with Peter to go back into separating themselves from the
Gentiles. And Paul addressed this to Peter right before everybody
and said, hey, you know, that is not the gospel. The gospel
is not following the law. And we've made that very clear.
We talked about it up in Jerusalem when all of us was together.
We decided that, you know, that this is not the doctrine that
Christ give us. We all was there. Every one of
us has heard. from the mouth of Jesus himself,
what his gospel is and what we are to preach to everybody. And
you even affirm that the law is not something that we can
keep and that it isn't something that should be preached to the
Gentiles. And now here yourself are following the very things
that you were preaching about. You're being a hypocrite, Peter.
And so, Paul confronting Peter with this begins to go into this
whole teaching are this whole dialogue about being justified,
that we are not justified by the works of the law. As a matter
of fact, if you look back in verse 16, it says, knowing that
a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the
faith of Jesus Christ. We are justified by the faith
of Jesus Christ. We're not justified by keeping
the law, doing good works, that my good works outweigh my bad
works. We're not justified by being
religious. We don't get justified by doing
religious things. We are not even justified by
our faith in Jesus Christ. We are justified by Jesus's faith
that he exhibited whenever he was here on earth and kept everything
that the Father had given him to do, and then he paid the sacrificial
price as our substitute, as our surety, and then whenever he
was resurrected from the grave, that showed and made proof positive
that Jesus Christ not only was God, but that he was the Son
of God sent to redeem his people and save his people from their
sins, and that God had accepted that sacrifice on behalf of those
people. And so by Christ's life, death,
burial, and resurrection, we have been given all that we,
all those spiritual gifts that we are, those spiritual blessings
that Ephesians once talks about. All spiritual blessings are given
to us in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. All those things now,
because of Christ Jesus and what he has done on the cross, he
has secured that salvation for his people therefore god can
be we just let us know you know how can god be uh... god still
save us still justify us you know how can he be the just god
and the justifier of sinners because we know that the bible
says that god will not justify uh... those who uh... those who
are sinners uh... he cannot justify uh... the guilty
he cannot acquit uh... the guilty to be a just god There
has to be payment when the law has been broken. And every one
of us in here, from the smallest to the oldest, have all broken
God's law. We have all broken the law of
God in one place or another. We read that if you've broken
the law in just one point, you've broken every one of them. And
if you're trying to seek to be justified by keeping the law,
you have to keep it. Mind, emotions, or mind and will,
mind and actions, You have to keep it inwardly and outwardly
all the time and never once break that. And so far, all I can tell
is every one of us has done that. The Bible tells us. Even if it
looked like you guys have never sinned, the Bible tells me that
you have. Because the Bible says, for all
have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The Bible
says that if we say that we have not sinned, God who has said
we are sinners and that all have sinned, If we say that we have
not sinned, we make God out to be a liar, because he says every
one of us has sinned. The Bible says that we come forth
from the womb, shapen in iniquity. We are full of iniquity. The
Bible says in Genesis that God looked down upon the world and,
go ahead and just, I'm sorry. That fly has a showdown, turn
that off. The Bible says that God looked
down from the, on the earth and he saw that the intent of man's
heart was only evil continually. That's what it says in Genesis.
That the intent of our heart, that our heart, the intent of
it in the flesh is only evil, only evil. There's none good. There's none who is righteous,
no not one. Listen, I don't care if you're
a nice grandmother or a small child. or even just a good son
or daughter or whatever, there is nothing that you can do in
your flesh that is good. Nothing. Any hopes of good that
comes from you is none. There is no hope whatsoever.
And so for anybody who tries to make a righteousness or to
keep a righteousness or to stay righteous with God after believing
upon Christ Jesus is going back away from grace and going back
to the law and hoping that they can keep the law and they can't.
It's futile. If you're trying to make a righteousness
before God by you doing anything, then you're never going to attain
it. It's not going to be pleasing.
It's not going to work. You will not find satisfaction in that
and neither will God. God will not find satisfaction
in your efforts to keep his law. So what we do is we trust in
Christ Jesus alone for our righteousness. and we take that everything that
he has done, his obedience, that's our obedience. We don't try to
keep obeying the law so that we can be right before God. Now,
again, that's not to say that God has not put in our hearts
the desire to keep the law, the desire to be right, the desire
to walk uprightly and to live a righteous and a holy type life,
okay? But if ever in your mind you
think that that's what's keeping you in with God, you're sadly
mistaken and you've moved away from grace and you've moved back
to the law. You've went back to your dead
husband instead of the husband that you are with now, which
is Christ. You've went back to Moses whenever you should be
looking to Christ. You've went from Mount Zion back
to Mount Sinai. And if you remember, Mount Sinai,
all there is there is thunderings and cursings. There is lightning. There is a veil. There is death. The Bible says that the law is
a ministration of death to us, not life. The law, as I've mentioned
last week, was never intended to bring forth life or to give
life to anybody or a righteousness to anybody. The law's sole purpose
was to pound us, to obliterate us, and to show us that there
is nothing that we can do to please God. That we are in desperate,
desperate need of a Savior. And so the law, whenever the
law is being preached, should be preached as the Bible intends
it, as God intended it to be preached. not as a way of life
or a rule of life that we should walk by to gain righteousness
or good standing with God or at the very beginning to be saved
by God, but the law was given to drive us to Christ so that
we would turn away from looking at the law and turn and look
to Christ who kept the law for us. To turn away from our actions
and words and look to Christ in His words. to trust in Him
and Him alone for our salvation. And whenever we do that, whenever
we do that, then that hope, that assurance comes. Because the
Bible says that our hope and our assurance, that our faith,
they are all intermingled together. The reason that we have a hope
in Christ is because God has given us faith to look away from
our dead works and look to Christ. The Bible teaches us that our
faith and our hope and our assurance are so neatly tied together that
for us to have assurance that Christ is ours or a hope that
Christ is ours, we are given faith that that faith only will
look to Christ. If we divert and look to our
works and think that our works is going to do it, then all that
brings to our heart is turmoil. It brings to us, like Paul found
out in Romans chapter 7, It brings this war within our soul where
we desire to be right and we desire to do what's right and
walk right and be obedient, but the flesh can't do anything.
So we have to depend upon the Lord. We have to trust upon the
Lord. We have to find our sufficiency in Him. We must look to Him and
say, I know I can't do it, but you have, and you have said that
if we will trust in you and believe upon you, then we shall be saved.
Now that doesn't mean that it'll get you saved. That doesn't get
you saved. That doesn't cause your salvation. But that believing proves that
you have been saved, because only Christ's sheep believe. Jesus said that my sheep hear
my voice saying, follow me. Jesus said the reason that you
don't believe, those that were there that didn't believe, he
said the reason you don't believe is because you're not my sheep.
Not backwards. See, the Arminian, the free will
believers, They will say that if you believe, you'll become
one of his sheep. But until then, you're just a
goat. If you look through scripture, every time that the Lord uses
that imagery between sheeps and goats, it never once talks about
a goat turning into a sheep. It never talks about a reprobate
turning into an elect. It always is two classes of people.
There is the seed of Satan, who is their father, and there is
the seed of Christ, and that is his father. That is our father,
okay? You are either of Christ or you
are of Satan. You are either of this world
or you are of heaven. And see, we who are the elect of God are
the seed of Christ who is the heavenly man who came down out
of heaven. Therefore, our life that was
hid in Christ in God was eternal life. And that life, that person
that we are in Christ Jesus is from the heavenlies, not from
the earthlies. We didn't come from That's why Jesus said, they're
not of the world just as I'm not of the world. Have you ever
thought of that? Have you been anywhere else besides
the world? We've only been here in the world, but what's he talking
about? He's not talking about this flesh and blood. He's talking
about who we are in our spirit, that life that came from above,
that new creation that is put in us, that life that's from
above, the life of Christ is in us. And that, that is the
life that we live. And so today, we see that by
justification, because of justification, we are right with God. And our
faith that is given to us in the new birth, the faith that's
given to the child of grace in the new birth looks to Christ
alone for that justification. And so that's why we see in verse
16, it says, It says even we have believed
in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of
Christ. We believe in Jesus Christ that
he is going to justify us by his faith and not by the works
of the law. For by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. And then in verse 17 he said,
but if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves are also
found Sinners is therefore Christ the minister of sin. God forbid. What does that mean? He says,
well, if we are sinners and God has justified us in Christ, does
that mean that God now has justified sinners? No. No, Christ has taken our place.
Christ has taken our place. Christ is not the minister of
sin. He is the minister of life and holiness and righteousness.
That's why the Bible says that when we have been born from above, that life that is in us is created
in righteousness and in holiness. That's why in the epistles of
John, it says that that seed which is in us, it cannot sin. It's perfect. It's holy. It's righteous. It cannot get
any better because it is perfect. And so Christ is not the minister
of sin because he justifies sinners. Now, what he did for us is substitute
for us and God took that that he did and it satisfied him. Hold your finger there in Galatians
and turn with me if you would to Isaiah 53. Isaiah is the Romans of the Old Testament.
Romans is probably one of the most doctrinal and theological
books in the New Testament. And Isaiah is the same in the
Old Testament. Isaiah chapter 53. This is talking
about the Lord Jesus here. I'm gonna start in verse one,
I'm gonna read down, okay? I actually didn't plan to do
this, but it goes along with what we're gonna be talking about. Isaiah 53, verse one says, who
hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed? Now, for those who've been here
for a while, I preached on this quite a while back, and I hope
you retained what was said. This question, the first question,
who has believed our report, is actually answered by the second
part of that. And to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed? The one who has believed our
report is the one to whom the Lord has revealed himself to. The arm of the Lord has revealed
himself to his people, and they are the ones who believe the
report. The only ones that believe the report of Jesus Christ, believe
the gospel of Jesus Christ, believes the testimony of Christ Jesus,
is the one to whom the Lord has extended his arm and revealed
himself to. Nobody else. That's why Jesus
prayed, Father, I thank thee for thou hast hidden these things
from the wise and prudent, but you have revealed them unto me.
Jesus actually, which was a hard thing for me to take whenever
I first started coming to the truth of scripture, about God's
sovereignty and predestination and election is that Jesus prayed,
I thank the Father that he has hidden these things. He has hidden
the gospel from the non-elect. They can't know it. They can't
understand it. He has not given them the ability.
The Bible says that the hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord
has given both of those. They can't hear, they can't see,
they can't understand. That has to be given with spiritual
life. But they've not been given spiritual
life to see these things. And Jesus actually prayed and
thanked the Father for hiding those things. That seems weird
because the modern Christianity out there that's just everywhere
is always talking about how God loves everybody and wants everybody
to know the gospel and wants everybody to be saved and he's
trying to save everybody if they'll just let him. That's not the
God of Scripture. That's another God, that's not
a God. That's another Jesus, that's
not a Jesus. That's another gospel, that's
not a gospel. And as we've learned in Galatians
chapter one, that if anyone preaches another gospel, let them be accursed
and they're not a servant of Christ. Who has believed our
report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he
shall grow up, speaking of Jesus, he shall grow up before him as
a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground He hath no
form or comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no
beauty that we should desire of him." That was very true.
Whenever he came, they said, if anything good come out of
Nazareth, look at this guy. I mean, ain't that just a carpenter's
son? He didn't dress in fine robes.
You go and you look at the Pope and all this garb that he wears
and everything. Jesus never dressed like that.
Peter, who they think the Pope is succeeding, He never dressed
that way. None of these guys did. And they
never accepted worship from anybody either. Remember whenever they
came to Peter and tried to worship? And he said, hey, don't worship
me. But yet, we see these false preachers,
these false teachers, these false leaders, and everything, even
within evangelical, quote unquote, evangelical Christianity. There's
pastors, they think they're above everybody else and they should
be, you know, they should be looked on as something special.
The pastors are no different than anybody else in here. We're
just sinners saved by grace like you have. The Lord has given
us a gift that he's given different than everybody else. And he's
given an office within the congregation that is to keep order, to help
keep order. But he's not an authoritarian.
He's not a king. He's not a priest. He's not in
charge of everything. The church is. The church is
the collective authority, not the pastor. The pastor is just
there to lead by example, to preach, and to keep order within
the church, to help keep order, direct order in the church. And
that's what the pastor does. And for that, the Bible does
say that there should be consideration for the work that he does, But
brother, that doesn't mean that we're any better than anybody
else. I'll tell you, I'm getting off on a tangent, but this just
bothers me sometimes. Whenever I pull into a church
somewhere and I see this big old sign right up at the front
of the church, reserved for pastor, you know, like he's something
special. Matter of fact, the pastor ought
to be the one parking at the far end of the parking lot so
that everybody else can be parked up front, you know? Or whenever
you walk in and you see all this, you know, he's got his name everywhere
all his credentials if he's gone to a seminary and everything,
and they use those credentials. And what they do is they try
to make themselves, they make themselves something so that
people will respect them, so that people will give them honor,
and that people will, and listen, Jesus said, blessed are the poor
in spirit, blessed are the meek. He said that that is not what
we are to look for, and so often we see pastors, and listen, it's
not just pastors' faults either. Now, most of it is, but listen,
a lot of it is church people who put their pastors up on a
pedestal. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't love your pastor,
that you shouldn't honor your pastor. The Bible tells us that.
But so many people make him out to be something greater than
he is. And you look on TV, especially these charismatic preachers and
everything, these people almost fall down and worship these guys.
Kiss their rings and all this kind of stuff, you know? And
they walk around so proud and so arrogant that, you know, and
what is it, if you ever say anything to try to correct them, what
do they do? They say, touch not God's anointing.
You know, they use that verse of scripture. But see, that's
not, Jesus came as a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground.
He had no form or comeliness, and there was no beauty that
we should desire in him. That's how Jesus came. He is
despised and rejected of men. He's a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He
was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne
our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions."
See, he was wounded. He was crucified on that cross
for our transgressions. for the elect's transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquity in our place. He took on our
iniquity and he bore that in his body and he was crucified
and he took the wrath of God for our iniquities. The chastisement
of our peace was upon him. And with his stripes, we are
healed. There again, brethren, that doesn't
mean that our bodies are healed of infirmities or sicknesses. We find that in a lot of charismatic
churches. They go to this verse and say,
by his stripes, because Jesus had those stripes, that that
brings us physical healing. The context of this whole entire
passage is our spiritual healing. The whole context of this is
what Christ does in saving and redeeming his people. It's not
about physical healing, it's about spiritual healing. We are
dead in trespasses and sins, and by Christ bearing our iniquities,
he has healed us by those strides. He has healed us of that spiritual
death. He has healed us of that separation
from God. He has reconciled us to God by
those strides. He has healed us in that way. Now, does God heal? Absolutely,
I believe he does. I'm not saying that God doesn't
heal. And I'm not saying that God doesn't do miraculous healings
and everything. Now, I am a little skeptical
of people that call themselves healers going out and smacking
people in the foreheads and healing them. You know, I don't think
Benny Hinn and all those guys you see on TV is really healers. But, you know, I believe that
God heals. We know people that have been
healed miraculously by God. that didn't look like somebody
was gonna live, and just the next day, they were perfectly
fine. Couldn't find no reason why they even got better. God miraculously healed. So I'm
not saying that that doesn't happen. But this verse is not
talking about that kind of healing. This is talking about our spiritual
aspect in what Christ is doing. Verse six, it says, all we like
sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way. and the Lord hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all. Now again, of us all is going
back to the sheep, right? He has laid the iniquity on him
for the sheep. So the all there, every time
you see the word all in the scripture, it's always gonna be qualified
and quantified by the context. The context is always gonna bear
out who the all is. And so here we see the all goes
straight back to the sheep. All we like sheep have gone astray. He hath laid on him the iniquity
of us all. Us all is the sheep, not everybody
in the world, okay? He was oppressed and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before his shears is done, he opened
not his mouth. And we've seen the Lord did that.
He didn't rail at his accusers. He spoke the truth. And he was
silent for the most part through all his trial and proceedings
up to his crucifixion. He never did try to say, if you
only knew who I was, you wouldn't be doing this, even though that's
true. The Bible even says that. If those people would have known
that he was the king of glory, they never would have crucified
him. But see, he chose to hide that from them. He chose to not
show that to them. Only to his children, only to
his disciples did he do that. He revealed that to his people.
That was who he was. It says, he was taken from prison
and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he
was cut off out of the land of the living for transgression
of my people was he stricken. For the transgression of his
people was he stricken. Not for everyone, but for his
people. For the transgression of his
people, that his people goes back up to verse six, who are
the sheep. The iniquity that he took of
all the sheep. See, the context always will
bear out who this is talking about. And I can tell you, go
to every place in the scripture where the Bible talks about these
things, and you're gonna find the context will always be congruent. It will always line up. The Bible
does not contradict itself. God does not contradict himself.
You will see over and over and over the scripture teaches that
Christ's death was only for his people, the elect of God, that
God had chosen before the foundation of the world and had given to
Christ, and Christ, in the covenant of grace, promised to go and
to redeem those people and save them from their sin. Matter of
fact, that's why they called him Jesus. He shall call his
name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. See, brother, that's the truth
of the scripture. See, we have to submit to what
the truth of scripture says. You know, our mind and our flesh,
our fleshly wisdom, our earthly Adamic wisdom wants to say, well,
that don't make sense. That ain't right. God shouldn't
be that way. That's not fair. But yet, whenever we're given
spiritual life with spiritual understanding and given the mind
of Christ with spiritual wisdom, It sees and it says that God,
being who he is, the sovereign of the universe, can give mercy
to whom he will give mercy and give compassion upon whom he
will give compassion. And he is just, and he is righteous,
and he is holy, and none of that is ever, ever doubted. Well,
I shouldn't say doubted. It is doubted by a lot of people
that don't believe this. But it isn't ever changed. His holiness doesn't change.
His justice isn't marred. His righteousness isn't marred
because of him choosing one and not another. Matter of fact,
we don't even have the right to question God on that. Who are you, old man, who replies
to God, hath not the potter power over the clay? He does. We are clay. It's his law. creation. He can do with his
creation what he wants to do with his creation. It goes on
and says, And he made his grave with the
wicked and with the rich in his death, because he had done no
violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Here it is. Yet
it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He had put him to grief
when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall
see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of
the Lord shall prosper in his hand." See, he saw his seed. He saw his offspring. He saw
the ones that were his, that was given to him in the covenant
of grace, his children. And he died in their place. He
took upon them, took upon himself their iniquities and it pleased
the Lord to do so. The Lord was pleased. That meant
that was his will. It was God's will that wicked
hands would take Christ and would crucify him. It was God's will
that Judas would betray Christ and turn him over to the high
priests and that they would try him falsely and that they would
find him guilty falsely. and that they would turn him
over to the Romans and the Romans would beat him to almost a death
with their whips and their stakes. It was God's will that Christ
was nailed to a cross. It was God's will that there
would be ridicule at the foot of his cross and that they would
make fun of him. And it was God's will that Jesus Christ would
give up the ghost, give his life up willingly. It was God's will
that he would lay in a tomb for three days and for three nights.
But it was also God's will that he would raise that son up because
everything that he just did satisfied God. And that's why he says,
he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure
of the Lord shall prosper in his hands. Why? Why is what Christ
did gonna prosper in the hands of God? What does it mean? What
is he talking about there? It's going to prosper in His
hands. That means that everyone for whom Christ is doing this
for is going to receive the benefits of it. All the benefits that
this salvation secures, they're going to receive the benefits
for that. It's theirs. It's their inheritance. Salvation is their inheritance.
Christ is their inheritance. And they're going to receive
that because He has done that for them. But why is he going
to? Why is it going to be theirs?
Verse 11, because God is going to see the travail of his soul
and shall be satisfied. God's law was satisfied. God's
justice was satisfied in what Christ did in your place. If you're his people. It says he shall see the travail
of his soul and shall be satisfied by his knowledge. Shall my righteous
servant who who's going to do it? His righteous servant, justify
many. It didn't say justify everyone.
It said justify many. Whenever you come up in Scripture,
whenever it talks about many, that is a peculiar or a special
group of people, right? If I said this morning, there
were many here today, does that mean everybody was here today?
No, it meant there was as many as was here. There was many.
more than a few, but less than all. That's what many means. It means more than a few and
less than all. Many is a specific amount. There
was a specific amount. There were specific people. He
justified many for he shall bear their iniquities. You see there
that we are not justified by anything that we do. We were
justified by what his righteous servant did, and God was satisfied
with that. because he bore all the iniquities
and he bore it to the furthest extent that God said there is
no more to give, there is no more needed to give, you have
paid the price in full, therefore everyone for whom you represent
owes nothing. Ain't that wonderful? Ain't that
wonderful? So therefore will I divide him
a portion with the great and shall divide the spoil with the
strong, because he had poured out his soul unto death, and
he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bared the sin of," there's
that word again, many, not everybody, but many, and made intercession
for the transgressors. So see, it's Christ that justified
us. He is the one, and so that's
who faith looks to, right? So if we seek to be justified
by Christ, we ourselves are found sinners Is therefore Christ the
minister of sin? No. God forbid. He's not the
minister of sin. He's the minister of life. He's
the minister of justice. He's the minister of righteousness.
He's the minister of justification. So now that we pick up in verse
19 and it says, for I, through the law, am dead to the law. Paul here is saying he's dead
to the law. Whenever we are given that divine
faith by God from above, the Spirit works hope in our hearts,
okay? The Spirit works hope in the
heart of the believer. And so we, by faith, see and
believe that we cannot be righteous. or that we cannot make righteousness
for ourselves, that we are not righteous in and of ourselves,
that we can't attain righteousness by law keeping. That's what faith
tells us. Faith tells us that only Christ
is our hope. So see, that's why I say if people
continue their whole entire lives, never repent of looking to their
dead works, their decision for Christ, their accepting of Christ,
their giving their heart to Jesus, They're walking down an aisle,
shaking the preacher's hand, you know, going through the water
baptistries. You know, all those things will
happen. We are going to receive Christ. We are going to love
him. We are going to, you know, pray that he would forgive us.
We are going to be baptized. We are going to, you know, those
things are going to happen. But that never is what God is
looking at as far as for our salvation. And so anybody who
still thinks that God cannot save anybody unless somebody
gives them their heart, or accepts Jesus as their Lord and Savior,
or whatever condition you want to put after that, if they continue
to believe those things, they never have been given the faith
of Christ. Because the faith of Christ reaches
out and only looks to Christ for salvation. Not the preacher,
not the church, not their own will or their own decision, They
don't believe that they get saved after they believe. They believe
that they were saved and therefore they were brought to believe
by Christ. We are brought to believe. The
Bible says that it has been granted unto you to not only believe
on him, but to suffer for his namesake. We were granted belief. We were granted repentance. We were given those things by
the Holy Spirit because of the new birth, not to get it. You can't do anything to get
the new birth. It's a gift that's given to you. And it's administered
by the Holy Spirit alone. The Holy Spirit is the only one
who administers eternal life. And that is given to us. And
so in that new birth, we receive that life that does that. And
that faith that is a gift of God looks to Christ alone for
his righteousness alone. Romans chapter 5 and verse 5
says this, and hope maketh not ashamed. Whenever we are given
faith, faith looks to Christ as our only hope. And whenever
we see Christ as our only hope, then it maketh us not ashamed
of Christ. It maketh us not ashamed that
we're sinners. See, before the Lord shows you
that you're a sinner, What do we want to do? We want to always
deny that we're a sinner. We don't think we're as bad as we
really are. We don't want to think that we don't, you know,
look at all the religious, look how religious I've been my whole
entire life. You know, I'm 48 years old and
I've never missed a day of church in my whole entire life. Matter
of fact, I've even went to extra church. I went to revivals and
to conferences and vacation Bible school and all these other things
that you can tap on the church. I'm religious because I read
my Bible every day. I give money. I go help widows
and orphans and all this stuff. I'm religious. Brethren, the
faith of Christ Jesus is exhibited by trusting and hoping in Christ
alone. That is walking by the Spirit. Walking by the Spirit is trusting
Christ not only for your initial salvation, but for your day-to-day
walk, for everything. Trust in Christ. That He is working
out the purpose and the will of God as God had ordained it,
decreed it before the foundation of the world, and every aspect
of it, every minute detail that God has predestined before time
ever started, Christ is the one who is bringing the order to
it all. He is bringing it into being.
He is making it possible. He is fulfilling those things.
I've mentioned that to you before. We see in the revelation, uh,
the lamb, uh, and John has shown that there is, uh, uh, one of
the beasts that are one of the elders or bees that can't remember
now that has this scroll. And they're asking him who can
open up the scroll. And John began to whip because there wasn't
nobody worthy to open up the scroll. And all of a sudden the
lamb steps forward and takes hold of the scroll. He says,
you know, fear not, or we've not, John, he said, you know,
The lamb has taken the scroll and he can open it. Paraphrasing.
And what does Jesus do? He opens up that scroll. Well,
that scroll, brethren, is all the predestinated, ordained things
of God. It's all of God's will. It is
all that God has purposed. And Christ has opened that scroll
and is unrolling that scroll. It's written on the front and
the back. It's a legal document. It's the covenant of grace. It
is everything that God has ordained. Christ is the one who is opening
that and unrolling that scroll and bringing forth everything
that God has determined. So our salvation, our hope, our
faith, that hope that is produced because of that faith looks to
Christ alone because he is the king. He is the magistrate. He is the one who is sovereign
over all things and controlling all things. He is the King of
kings. He is the Lord of lords. And
we look to him, we find our confidence in him. And so therefore we are
not made ashamed. We don't look to ourselves. Before
that, I was ashamed of my sin and was ashamed to say, Christ
is all I need. No, I wanted to make it about
what I had to do. Well, surely, surely you got to do something.
I mean, God's just not going to give it to you without you
doing something. Nope, that's what freely means, right? Freely
means free. You didn't have to do anything
for it. And so hope makes us not ashamed.
It makes us not ashamed to claim Christ, but it also makes us
not ashamed to say, at the end of the day, all I can be is an
unprofitable servant. I can't be anything better. That
all my righteousnesses are filthy rags. All my trying, all my efforts,
to please God is worthless. I can't do anything. See, that's
why you see, remember whenever that, where you had that Pharisee
and you had that man that went in and was praying and that Pharisee
was standing and he was praying to God and all these big, you
know, oratory thing. And he said, you know, I thank
you, God, that I'm not like this poor sinner and all this kind
of stuff. But yet you see the sinner over there on his face.
And he said, you know, I can't do anything. I'm worthless. You
know, I just pray, would you save me? And Jesus said, you
know, which one of those men went down justified? It wasn't
the one who thought he wasn't a sinner. It was the one who
knew he was a sinner. See, that's what faith does.
Whenever we are given the faith of Christ, that faith sees Christ
alone. The spirit of God convicts us
of sin, convinces us That's what the Bible says, that the Holy
Spirit is given to us to convince us of sin. Well, how come it
has to convince us of sin? Because the natural man doesn't
think we have sin. The natural man always says,
I'm okay. I'm all right. Hey, I'm better
than that guy. We're always comparing with each
other, right? Well, hey, you know, I'm an excellent preacher.
I'm better than that preacher over there. Or I'm better than
sister so-and-so or brother so-and-so. At least I don't do that. See,
we gauge ourselves off. Again, I've said this many times
in these passages. That's not the standard. The
standard isn't each other. The standard is Christ Jesus.
That's the standard that we're to be at. And all of us have
fallen short of that. That's why we need Christ. That's
why we look to Christ. We're looking at each other.
We're looking at other people. And it's not about that. And so it makes us where we are
not ashamed to say that we are a sinner. We're not ashamed to
say that. And then it says, because the
love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost,
which is given unto us. So whenever we have been given
faith, that faith looks to Christ. And when we look to Christ, we're
given a hope. Why? Because the Bible says that
he came into the world to save sinners. We've been told and
been made convinced by the Holy Spirit of God that we are sinners.
And so if I am a sinner, and you say you came into the world
to save sinners, and that you're freely giving this gift, then
I'm looking to you for my salvation and turning away from myself.
I've done that. I've tried that. I've tried to
do all those works, but I can't do it. I keep failing. Every
time I want to do good, evil's present with me. And so the love
of God then is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit
because we see a hope in Christ. And that's what we have. We got
it right there on the wall. Faith, hope, and love. Right
there. The three things that God gives
the child of grace is faith, hope, and love. Matter of fact,
Paul tells us about that in 1 Corinthians 13, 13, he says, now abideth
faith, hope, and charity, and that word charity is the same
word as love. The Greek word behind that is agape, which is
divine love, God's love. Now abideth faith, hope, and
God's love, or love, these three, and the greatest of these is
charity, or love. Faith and hope is great, but
whenever God gives us a love for God, than that is better
than faith and hope. And here's the reason why. For
I, through the law, am dead to the law that I might live unto
God. See, as long as we're looking
to the law, our faith is not going to find hope. When we look
to the law, we're not going to find hope. We're only going to
find condemnation. accusation, pointed fingers. You're guilty. You're guilty.
You're guilty. You're guilty. You're guilty.
You're guilty. We're all guilty. That's what
we see when we look at the law. And when faith looks through
the law, there is no hope. And if there's no hope, we're
not going to love that. Get me away from that, please. But whenever we're given faith,
and hope, and that faith and hope is in Christ Jesus, then
there's a love that should have brought in our heart for what
He has done for us. And we are, the Bible says, that
love of God constraineth us. It constrains us. The Bible says in Proverbs 13,
12, hope deferred maketh a heart sick. Whenever hope is deferred,
Hope is put on pause or when hope is delayed. Whenever we
don't receive hope really quick, what happens? The heart becomes
sick. That's what I say. Whenever, if that faith is looking
to the law, there's no hope in the law. And whenever we don't
get that hope, if we don't get that hope soon, the heart becomes
sick. It becomes bitter. It becomes,
I'm just going to give up. There ain't no sense. I can't
keep God's law. I'm tired of working. We become weary in well-doing. Hope deferred makes the heart
sick. But when the desire cometh, whenever hope comes in, it's
a tree of life. Whenever hope comes in, it's
a tree of life. What is the tree of life? The
tree of life, the river of life, these images that the Bible uses
for us. What is the tree of life? Well, the tree of life It's something
that gives life, that life springs from. The tree of life. The fruit of that tree is what?
Life. Whenever we look at that, the
Bible says that in you will dwell rivers of living waters. Okay,
there's another image. And so, in us it springs up a
well of living water. What is this that's in us? It's
the Spirit of God that is, by faith, giving us a hope to look
to Christ alone And what He has done is our life. We have now seen that our life
is in Christ, not in ourselves. It's not in our working, but
it's in Him. We are in Him. Therefore, everything that is
His is ours. And that love that we have, thank
you so much for that free gift that you've given us in Christ
Jesus. That love that is shed abroad, that comes from divine,
that comes from God. It's not love like we have Humanly
speaking, it's divine love that can't be manufactured. It's a gift. That love is gifted
to us. It's shed abroad in our heart.
What means? It fills our heart. And whenever that love fills
our heart, what does it do? It constrains us and makes us
not want to disobey the one who just give us all these pretty
good things. So now we have a law within instead of a law without. And the law within is the one that guides us. The
law within is the one that directs us. That makes us, just like
Paul said, you know, I know that with my flesh I'm gonna serve
the law of sin, but with my mind I will serve the law of Christ. That inward man is serving the
law of Christ because he desires holiness, he desires righteousness,
he wants to do that, and the spirit of God in him is perfect
and it cannot sin, so therefore the inner man never sins. Now
our outward flesh, it does. It's corrupt and all it can do
is sin. That's why one of these days
God's gonna put this body of flesh down and give us a body
that matches what's inside. I through the law am dead to
the law. What does that mean? Now it can
be taken two different ways. I'm gonna go over both ways.
But both, I want you to see that both statements about this is
true. Number one, we can look at that whenever Paul says, I
through the law am dead, he could be talking about through the
law of Moses that we've been brought to see our inability,
that we are unable to keep the law, and that the schoolmaster,
the Bible calls the law our schoolmaster, right? That the schoolmaster
has taught us that if we seek salvation by law keeping, there's
no hope. And so we only look to Jesus.
So one way to look at this is that we have no need for a schoolmaster
anymore. Therefore, he's dead to us. We
don't need our schoolmaster anymore because I've been told about
Jesus and now my faith is looking to Jesus. I don't need the schoolmaster
anymore. I'm dead to him. We use that
term every now and then. If we have somebody that we don't
like or we get upset with, they make us really mad. And you just
finally say, well, I'll tell you what, you're dead to me.
We go off. What does that mean? You're dead
to me. That means that I don't regard you as anything anymore.
I disregard you. You don't have any place in my
life. You don't have any place in my relationship. I don't have
to come to you for anything. I don't depend upon you for anything.
I am totally disassociated with you, and that's it. You're dead
to me. That's what it's talking about.
Well, here, the Bible says that we are dead to the law. We can
look at it that way, that the law of Moses as the schoolmaster
has taken us to Christ, and now that we're looking to Christ,
we don't need the schoolmaster anymore, so I'm dead to that.
He doesn't have anything for me. There's nothing that he can
produce to help me or to be of any benefit to me. Or we can
look at it the second way. Through the law of Christ, We're
brought to see that in Him the law is fulfilled, that sins are
forgiven, we're reconciled to God, sanctified fully for His
use, that our justification before God was by His work and not ours. So in the law of Christ, we are
dead to the law from now on in regards to seeking life and righteousness
by it. So I'm dead to the law as it
means I'm dead to the law of Christ, or excuse me, to the
law of Moses as my righteousness. Now, I think both of these can
be true. The law of Christ there can be either one of those. On
the one hand, the context, though, has been talking about the law
of Moses, right? However, on the other hand, the
scriptures do declare that the gospel is the good news that
brings life and immortality to life. It's the one that informs
us. It's the good news. Okay, so
it's the good news. Well, I think both of these are
at work, and it's interweaved with itself. The law comes to
us, brings us to Christ, or shows us that we are unable to keep
everything as the standard of Christ is set, and it brings
us to the place of despair and without hope, and then the gospel,
the law of Christ, come in and says, believe on me, all ye who
are weary and heavy laden, I'll give you rest. See, only those
ones that have been made weary and heavy laden are the ones
that God gives rest to. See, the righteous man, the man
who is not sick, the one who's not a sinner in his own eyes,
I have no need of a physician. Ain't that what they were saying?
Jesus said, they don't have a need for a physician. I come to speak
to the sick. They're the only ones that need
a physician. Those people over there, they think they're healed.
They think they're whole. They don't need anything. So
they're not going to find any need for a physician. See, whatever
the law, what the law does is it brings us to Christ and it slays us. It kills us.
We know that we're nothing before him. But then the law of Christ
comes in with hope. That in Christ Jesus, all of
that has been taken care of for you. Everything that that law
pointed and demanded of you, Christ has done for you. And
here it is, it's free. And he gives it to you. And you
love him for it. I think it's all together the
same. And so what the gospel does is it comes in right at
the point where the Mount Sinai, where the tables of stone, where
Moses, where the law of God demolished us and left us defeated and just
bruised and, I mean, just crushed us to death, the gospel comes
in. And he says, good news, good
news. Your sins have been forgiven.
There has been a righteousness given to you. See, the law of
Moses is a ministration of death, but the law of Christ is a ministration
of life. The law of Christ. Believe on
Christ alone. Look to Christ alone. Quit looking
to your law keeping. Look to Christ. That's the ministration
of life. 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse
7 says this. But if the ministration of death
written and engraved in stone, so we know that's talking about
the law of Moses, right? If the ministration of death
written and engraved in stones was glorious, so that the children
of Israel could not steadily behold the face of Moses for
the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away. So here we see that the ministration
of death, the law of Moses was a ministration of death, and
there was a glory, there is a glory in that. But it was a fading
glory. It had a glory for a certain
purpose. But when that purpose goes away,
There is no need for that. There is no more glory. The law
had the glory of bringing the sheep of God to Christ. The law
was the schoolmaster to teach them, to show them their need
for Christ. Isn't that what we've seen in
Acts chapter 15, whenever they all convened at Jerusalem with
Paul and Barnabas and they discussed all those things? And they said,
listen, we've been trying to do this law for centuries now,
ever since it was given by Moses, and nobody has kept this law.
We have found there is no hope, so why do you want to make the
Gentiles try to keep the law? They've never had the law. They've
never been under the law. They've never been burdened by
the weight of it. Why do that when we know for a fact that
the only thing that the law is is the administration of death? So we see that the law is just
a ministration of death, and its glory was only short-lived. It wasn't designed to be forever. In Colossians 2.14, the Bible
says, blotting out the handwriting
of ordinances that was against us. That's again talking about
the law. The handwriting of ordinances.
Writing on tables of stone, engraving in stone. That's what 2 Corinthians
3 says, right? It was engraving, you got it,
you know, chiseling out on some rock, engraving in tablets of
stone. Well, in Colossians, God uses
a different image. He says, handwriting of ordinances. Somebody's wrote out all these
laws where we have ordinances here in town. Way too many ordinances
here in town. Okay, dumb ordinances here, by
the way, some of them. But ordinances, no matter what,
you can go to Joplin's website and you can pull up all those
ordinances. What are they? They're laws that we have to
abide by. The Bible here says that Christ, whenever he went
to the cross, blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that
was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the
way nailing it to his cross. So faith is looking to the finished
work of Christ. It hopes in it alone for salvation. And by that faith and from that
hope springs love shed abroad in our hearts. And that love
constrains us to Christ. Therefore, look at verse 20.
I am crucified with Christ. We are in union with Christ Jesus.
Therefore, when he died, we died. But it says, nevertheless, I
live. Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking
about that I was actually nailed to a cross and bled to death,
suffocated to death, died. No, I was crucified with Christ. My old man, that person that
I am in the flesh, that person that cannot keep the law, the
handwriting of ordinances that was against me was great. It was condemning me. I was guilty
before God. I could not reach the standard
of God. Therefore, I was crucified with
Christ. Yet, I live. How can a person be crucified
and live? Well, because we now have the
life of Christ in us. I am crucified with Christ with
the handwriting of ordinances that was nailed to the cross.
Nevertheless, I live. But look what he says here. Yet
it's not I that liveth. That's why I say, brethren, whenever
we are born again, it's not God taking us and regenerating or
reviving something that was already there. There's other denominations
of so-called churches out there. that was that has sprung from
Charles Wesley and John Wesley and They believe that everyone
has this little spark in them and that you can just fan that
flame and it will become You know, they'll become holy again.
They'll become righteous again that we truly have aren't dead. We're just injured Okay, we're
not dead in trespasses of sin. We're just kind of injured a
little bit and if we just you know hear the gospel, if we just
do religious things and everything like that, then we can, you know,
help ourselves. But that's not what the Bible
says. The Bible says that we are dead in trespasses and sins
and we can't do anything in the flesh to please God. So Christ,
he says, yet not I that lives, it's not me living. I'm dead. But Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, how does he live? Does he live by going back to
the law that sent him to the cross to begin with? The law
that condemned him? The law that accused him? The
law that crushed him beneath the holiness of God? He says,
but the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of
the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. How
do we walk? Do we walk looking to the law
for our daily living? No, we look to Christ, to the
faith of Christ. I know we all want to do right
and to stay right and to, you know, those types of things,
live and be obedient to Christ. But look, we don't look to those
things. We look to Christ alone. and trust and believe that everything
that God has ordained for us, God's working that out in us.
All the good works that God has given for us to do, that he has
ordained for the foundation of the world, we're gonna do every
one of them, no more and no less. I feel that you guys on many
occasions, you've heard me say that phrase. That we are gonna sin every sin
that Christ died for No more and no less. We're not going
to sin more than what Christ died for, otherwise we're still
in our sin. And we're not going to sin any less because Jesus
paid the price for every sin of ours. But on the other hand,
we're going to work every good work. And whenever I mean we
work, I'm talking about the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit
is the one that works these things in you. And they're not fleshly
works. They're not outward works. They're
inward works. All the works that the Holy Spirit does within us,
are things that are done on the spiritual level, on the inward
level. He gives us repentance. He gives us faith. He gives us
hope. He gives us assurance. He gives us holy desire, the
constraining. All these things are inward things
that the Holy Spirit does. These are the works of God that
you might believe. Whenever they ask Jesus, what
do we do to do the works of God? He said, this is the work of
God that you believe. Not that you go to church, that you go
to the baptism and get baptized, that you go, you know, Those
are good things, and the Bible does tell us that we should follow
after those things. But that is not the good works that we're
talking about. The good works is not the outward works we do.
The good works are the inward works that the Holy Spirit is
working out that salvation in us. 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. See, it's an inward work that
the Holy Spirit does. And so Paul says, I am crucified
with Christ, nevertheless I live, Yet not I, but Christ live within
me in the life which I now live in the flesh. I live looking
to the faith of the Son of God, the works of Jesus Christ and
all that he has done. I do that and the faith that
he has given me and in divine gift who loved me, gave himself
for me. And then in verse 21, we'll wrap
this up. He says, because of that, I do
not frustrate the grace of God. And what does he mean by that?
Frustrate the grace of God. Does that mean that that he's
stopping the grace of God? No, that's not what he means.
Whenever he says, I do not frustrate the grace of God, he says, remember,
he's talking to Peter, who is being a hypocrite. He's talking
to Peter, who went back to the law instead of standing in grace
whenever those Judaizers came. So Paul says, and it's almost
like a backhanded, you know, rebuke to Peter, He says, because
of what I've just said, I do not frustrate the grace of God,
or I do not confuse the grace of God. That's what the Judaizers
were doing. They were confusing the grace
of God to those Galatian believers. They were saying it's by grace
and by words. It's by Christ and by good words.
You've got to keep the law, Moses, but yes, it is Jesus who saved
you. Jesus saved you, but you've got to keep the law. That's what
they said in Acts 15. That's what Paul said they were
saying in Galatians 1. They were saying that it's Jesus
plus the law. And all throughout scripture,
it's never that. It's always Jesus. It's always Jesus. It's
always, always, always, always, always Jesus. Guess what, son?
Look at this. It's always Jesus. It's always
Jesus. No matter where I turn in this
whole Bible, it's always Jesus. The Bible in every aspect, in
every place is always pointing to, it's always Jesus. It's always
Jesus. Salvation is about Jesus. Salvation
is by Jesus. Salvation is through Jesus. Salvation
is to Jesus. You are saved for Him that you
might give glory unto God. You are a vessel of mercy that
God has given to Himself to show forth glory and praise to Him.
It's all about Jesus. And so Paul says that I do not
frustrate or I do not confuse the grace of God with the law. Peter, you're confusing God's
grace and the message of grace, the gospel of Jesus Christ, faith
of Christ for justification. You're confusing all that whenever
you step back into the law work business. You're confusing that. You're being a bad testimony
to others whenever you step that way and walk that way. He says,
for if righteousness come by the law, If what you're saying
is true, Peter, and you're saying that we must keep the law, like
you already said it wasn't, but you step back in there, you know
what you're saying? Hey, we didn't need Christ. We can keep the
law. Let's go to the law for righteousness. See, that's what
you're saying every time you think about your dead works,
your good works, good works, your dead works, that you can
provide a righteousness. for salvation, or as your walk
of salvation. If you think that's what's keeping
you, then Christ wasn't needed. We don't need Christ. I'm doing
it. And the Bible says that Christ
is not going to share his glory with anybody. That's why salvation was done
by sovereign grace, is so that no man may boast, that no man
before God can say, I did this or I did that. And so Paul says,
I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness
come by the law, then Christ has died in vain. He's dead in
vain. There was no reason that Jesus
should have ever had to go through all that if you can keep a righteousness
by doing law keeping. Brethren, this issue isn't just
a little side issue that churches deal with. This issue of law
and grace, this issue of the law of Moses versus the grace
of Jesus Christ is not something that is just a side issue like,
you know, do you believe in the rapture? Do you believe in, you
know, the end, you know, everything happens at the very end, okay?
This isn't a deal of whether or not, you know, do you believe
that, you know, the Bible is King James or is the Bible this
or that? You know, that's not what we're
talking about. We're talking about The very heart of the gospel
is justification by the faith of Christ, not by your faith
and not by your dead works. It's by Christ alone. It's the
very gospel that was being preached. If you look through everything
that we have talked to, talked about from Galatians 1.1 down
to where we're at right now, the context is the gospel. What is the gospel? The gospel
is the preaching and the ministration of Christ and his work alone
for the justification of his people. Why would Paul have opened
up with that harsh language to the Galatians of telling them,
there is no other gospel. And if anybody's preaching another
gospel, let them be a curse. And if they're preaching that
gospel, they are not a servant of Christ. That is the opening
context to everything we're reading right now. The gospel is important. The gospel is a one gospel gospel,
not a many segmented gospels. It's one gospel and it is a gospel
that Jesus Christ has saved his people and that salvation is
in him and him alone and by his work alone, by his righteousness
alone. And that if we are saved, it
is because he has done something not because of the condition
that was met by us. So it's very important that we
do that. Why do we not fellowship with
churches that preach another gospel? Because that's above
most important. It isn't about, I just don't
like that preacher, or I don't like the format of their services,
or this or that. It's because of the gospel. That
if they're not preaching this gospel, they're preaching another
gospel. And they are not a servant of
Christ. I'm not gonna go to a church and worship where there's somebody
out there that's not a servant of Christ preaching. I'm not
going to go to a place where they're preaching and peddling
something that is anti-Christ. Whenever you preach a free will,
free choice, Arminian type gospel, that is anti-Christ. It's against
Christ. Opposed, that's what anti means.
Against or opposed. It's opposite of Christ. The
Bible teaches that it's Christ alone who procured your salvation
and applies it to you to your account. Free will says Christ
has done all he's done, and God's offering that salvation to everybody
and loves everybody and wants everybody safe, but you can't
unless you choose him, believe on him, love him, do whatever
you fill in the blank. See, that means that the door,
the hinge pin, it opens by your faith, by your belief, by your
action, And that's not how salvation is obtained. He hath obtained
for us an eternal salvation. He hath obtained it and he has
given it. So brethren, that's the heart
of the gospel. All right, we'll stop right there. Now we've been
talking about justification. Lord willing, next time we meet,
we're going to start chapter three and we're going to see
it's not just talking about your initial salvation, your legal
salvation. But it's talking about how we
live everyday life. This is also part of our everyday
life, looking to Jesus as our salvation. Does anybody have
any questions or comments or any review for correction? I'm
always open for correction and review by any of the brothers
that might want to bring that forward and everything. All scripture is given by inspiration
of God, and it's profitable, not just for the good things,
but also for the hard, bad things. Sometimes we need to be corrected
in our rebuke, and I'm not above error, so don't ever listen to
me and just take my word for it. You look at God's word and
see if that's what the word of God says. If I'm saying what
the word of God says, and if not, I pray that you would love
me enough to come tell me. Because I was deceived. Anybody? All right. Well, let's pray, and I forgot
to pray before. Well, I did, I prayed before.
Let's have a word of prayer, and we'll be dismissed. Gracious
Heavenly Father, we once again come to you, and we are so grateful
for this glorious gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Father, that's our message, that's
our song, that's our heart, that's everything. Our hope is given
to us, and that hope is Jesus Christ and what He has done for
us. This message is just so endearing to the child of grace. We love
to hear it. We don't get enough of it. We
never get tired of hearing what Christ has done for us. And so
Father, Lord, I pray that today that this has been not only a
blessing, but it has been edifying, that it's truly been something
that has fed your sheep that are here today. Lord, I pray
that you just might continue to be with us as we minister
here in Joplin, that you might allow us to continue to be a
light here of truth. And Lord, we're just so thankful
for all these brothers and sisters that are here. And Lord, I just
ask that you might continue to teach us, grow us, Lord. I pray
for those that have yet to profess faith in Christ. Lord, I pray
that if they are your children, that you would give them that
mind of Christ, that they might know their need for you, that
they might come and that they might publicly profess that,
and that they might be baptized, Lord, and that they might be
made members within the church, that they might join in serving
in the ministry of the church. Even now, Lord, we just ask that
you might enlarge this place, not for pride or for arrogance
or for show, Lord, but for fellowship or we desire to fellowship with
other brothers and sisters and to be a place where they can
experience fellowship. And Lord, we desire others, uh,
so that we might have others to work and help and, and, and
the work of the ministry. And so father, Lord, we are so
grateful that you are the head of the church and that we're
not because you know how to take care of your people and you know
how to take care of the church. And so Lord, we are. Looking
to you for all the answers. We trust you and you alone. And we thank you again for your
grace and mercy that you've given to us in the Lord Jesus. We ask
you to bless the food that we're about to eat for those who are
staying to eat, Lord. And we ask that it be nourishment
to their bodies. And it's in Jesus' name that
we pray. Amen.