John chapter 15. We're going to start reading in verse
1. I shared this message last week with a church in Delaware. But I mentioned to you the week
before that I planned on preaching this here. a couple of weeks. John chapter 15, verse one, let's
bow and have a word of prayer. Our gracious heavenly father,
we come this morning and we're so grateful today for your mercy
and grace that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you
for this time that we have together, father. And we ask now that you
might speak and minister to us. We pray for the Holy Spirit to
give function in our speech and in our hearing and in our understanding.
We pray father in the Lord that you might Glorify your son in
our worship today. We pray, Lord, that we might
be pleasing to you in all things that we do, whether it be our
singing or preaching or fellowshipping together, Lord, as we meet together.
Father, we just ask that it might be honoring to you. We pray that
the gospel of Jesus Christ might be preached today. We pray for
our members that are not here. We ask for that you might be
with them. We pray, Lord, that you would just guide them, direct
them if they're sick. Lord, we pray that you just might
lift them up. We pray for my granny this morning,
Lord, that you might be with her and her leg. We pray for
my friend in Muskogee. I pray, Lord, that
you just might be with him this morning as he's in the hospital
and I pray for All those that's out there that's going through
a lot of struggles that we seem to be hearing about here lately,
Lord, we just pray that you just might minister to their needs.
We pray for Joplin. We ask Lord that you just might
keep us faithful here as witnesses of the truth, or we pray for
more people that may be here in this town that love the gospel. that is looking for a place to
worship under the truth of free and sovereign grace. Lord, we
pray that you might bring them to worship and to fellowship
with us. Lord, we don't look for numbers, for popularity. We don't look, Father, to numbers
for a notoriety or any kind of thing like that. Lord, we ask
that you might bring those so that they might have a place
to come, a place of safety to be able to worship and a place
to serve and to hear the truth of God being taught and loved
by the people here. Lord, we pray that they might
also be a help in the ministry of the gospel here as well. The
Father Lord, we just pray that your will be done in all things
as we know it will be. But we just pray that you might
help us to learn and to understand and to trust you in all things
that we do. And it's in Christ's name that
we pray. Amen. Have you ever, have you
ever heard or read a book or heard somebody talk about a book
about how to become a better Christian or how to mature in
the faith or how to abide in Christ. You know, I hear, you know, there's
these cliches that we have in religious circles that we use
a lot of times. And sometimes they're good, sometimes
they're not so good. Sometimes people take cliches
for scripture, and the cliche may be as unscriptural as can
be, but because we hear it in religious circles so much, we
think that, you know, that must be the scripture,
you know? One of them is, you know, God
helps those who help themselves, you know? You can't find that
in the scriptures anywhere. That's something that people
says in religious circles, and a lot of people think that's
in the Bible, and that's not in the Bible. However, this thought about abiding, I
told you a couple weeks ago that I've been looking at that in
my studies. What does it mean to abide in
Christ? Can you, by your efforts, keep
yourself abiding in Christ? You know, I mentioned to the
church in Delaware last week, you know, you can go into a bookstore
and you can find books on, you know, like, you know, the big
one that we used to hand out was, you know, 10 Steps to Christian
Maturity. or the four spiritual laws that
you can live by, or, you know, these things are on biblical
booklets, you know. But there are books about how
to abide in Christ. And it's, you know, motivational
speakers and writers who are writing with human reasoning
on how to be more Christian-like. And they take principles or they
take verses and scriptures in the Bible and use that to give
you fuel for your Adamic nature that always wants to produce
a self-righteousness and give you hope that there's something
that you can do to obtain some kind of form of religious righteousness
before God, whether it's to get saved or to stay saved. And so
all these books do is mask the fact that according
to the scriptures, we are unable to do anything before God. The
only thing that is good that could ever be done by us is that
which the Holy Spirit does in us. And abiding in Christ is
not a conditional thing. Uh, it isn't something that God
tells us. If you will abide in me, I will
abide in you. Now we're fixing to read some
verses going to say that, but you got to understand what the
rest of the scripture says. We got to know what the Bible
says to know what scriptures say. We got to know what the
tenor of scriptures teach to know what individual context
is mean. Whenever we look at the, at the,
at the word of God, and I was talking to brother Eagle called
me last night and we were talking about, about a few verses of
scripture that he was studying. And he was calling, asking what
my thoughts were on them. And I told him, I said, you know,
a lot of times, People overlook the context of the scriptures. And context is very important
because if you come across the verse that seems to be contradictory
to what is being taught in other places of scripture, then it
isn't the Bible that's wrong, it's us that is wrong. Our understanding
or our interpretation of that passage is completely wrong.
So we need to go back and pray that the Holy Spirit would give
us more light on that issue or on that passage of scripture.
Because all scripture is going to coincide with the rest of
the book, with the rest of the Bible. And it's not going to
be contradictory. And so if we come to a place
where there is some sort of a, it sounds like there is a condition
for us to keep, then we have to re-evaluate how we're looking
at that scripture because the Bible never teaches that by our
works is there any kind of righteousness to be obtained. And so whenever
we look here in John chapter 15, and we look, these are very
familiar verses to us. And we read that Jesus here is
teaching a story or teaching a principle, I should say, and
he's using the illustration or the imagery of a vine and a branch. Let's go ahead and start reading
in verse one. It says, Jesus speaking here,
I am the vine, I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman. Now, a husbandman, in case you
didn't know what a husbandman is, a husbandman, that's kind
of hard to say, a husbandman is someone who is like the person
who takes care of the plants. He's the one that waters them,
that fertilizes them, that trims them, you know, that prunes the
hedges and things like that. That's what the husbandman is.
He says, I am a true vine and my father is the husbandman.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. and every branch that beareth
fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the
word which I have spoken unto you. Now here it is, now listen. Abide in me and I in you, as
the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in
the vine. No more can ye except ye abide
in me." Okay, so what's Jesus talking about here? He's talking
about bearing fruit. Okay, whenever we talk about
bearing fruit, what do we generally mean? Well, we mean good works,
okay? Bearing fruit is, uh, not dead
works, but true works, the works that Christ, that is produced
that are divine fruits, that are fruits that are from above
and not fleshly fruits, okay? And he says here that every branch
in me that beareth not fruit, He taketh away, and every branch
that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more
fruit. And then he says, abide in me,
and I in you, as a branch cannot bear fruit of itself. So that's
a principle that we need to understand. What's he talking about here?
A branch cannot bear fruit by itself. The branch derives its
life from the vine. It is only because it is united
to the vine that life flows into it. Whenever we look out here
at this tree, you have the vine or the tree trunk that the life
flows up in, and then the branches that come out of that that is
attached to that tree or that vine They don't produce life. The
life comes from the root, or the stem, or the vine. Think of a tomato vine. My wife
grows tomatoes every year, and you see this vine come out, and
then the branches that come off of it, and then the fruit comes
at the end of it, okay? That fruit is produced as the
vine gives life through the branch, and produces fruit in the branch,
but the branch is just attached to the vine. The branch didn't
provide the life to the fruit, the vine did. The branch didn't
cause union with the vine, the vine did. The vine grew the branch
out of itself. the branch came into being or
became manifest because of the life of the vine. And so Jesus
is teaching this principle here about his people, that we as
his branches derive our lives and fruit bearing because of
our attachment to the vine. It is because we are in him that
we receive spiritual life. That's why we always go back
to Ephesians chapter one, where it says that he has blessed us
with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus as we were chosen in him before the foundation of the
world. We are in a vital union with Christ Jesus and that life
that we receive in time whenever we are born from above is that
same life that was hidden with Christ in God. before the foundation
of the world. It's the life of Christ. Now,
remember, we just come off of teaching about the two seeds,
and one of the things that I mentioned at the very beginning of that
was the fact that God has made everything with its life inside
of itself, okay? That everything reproduces after
its kind, and it reproduces because its life is in itself. Uh, that
first seed has the life of all the other seeds in it. And so
that first life is the life that is, uh, is experienced by every
other, uh, tree and fruit and tree and fruit and tree and fruit
that ever comes about because of the life of the original.
And we've seen that Christ is the seed. And Christ is the seed,
the original seed of spiritual life. The Bible says in him is
life. The Bible says that, Christ speaking
says, I am the way, the truth and the life. He is life. And so that life, and matter
of fact, the Bible even says that he is eternal life, that
eternal life is Christ. So that life, that eternal life
that we receive in the new birth is a life that is given to us
that is Christ's life. It's the life that is passed
down as a spiritual seed. And we talked about that, the
elect of God, all those who were chosen before the foundation
of the world to be in Christ Jesus, that they will be the
recipients of that life. And as that life comes into them,
They will begin to bear fruit because of that life, that spiritual
fruit, love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness,
meekness, temperance, faith. Those gifts that come in the
new birth come because they are the fruits of the life of that
kind. Just as a tomato produces a tomato. Because the life that's in it,
in that seed, is the life of a tomato. It's kind. And that's
why in Genesis we've seen everything reproduced after its own kind,
because the life of that kind was in it. Adam reproduced after
his own kind. What did he reproduce? Natural
men. He produced natural men. And
women, men in general, talking about. man in general, he reproduced
natural people, fleshly people of the earth, earthy that cannot
please people that cannot please God. They cannot, that has no
spiritual life in them. That's what he reproduced after
himself. And, and the scripture says that
Christ has a spiritual seed. Now this abiding here. He says,
Abide in me and I in you as a branch cannot bear fruit of itself except
it abide in the vine. No more can ye except ye abide
in me. So that means that, you know,
if you tear off a branch and you throw it on the ground, it's
not going to produce any fruit, is it? What's going to happen
to it? It's just going to wither up and die, right? Okay. So a branch apart from the vine
is not a fruit producer. It's not even going to be alive.
It's going to be dead. And so Christ here is saying
that the only way that there is going to be a righteous fruit
produced in you or in anybody is if they're attached to the
vine. If they're attached to the life
producing, uh, uh, or excuse me, the fruit producing life,
uh, of the vine. Okay, now let's go on, he says,
I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in
him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without me ye
can do nothing. So what does this tell us? Unless
it's the life of the vine producing the fruit, everything else that
we produce is nothing. The natural man cannot produce
anything spiritual or God would, no matter how good it is, the
natural man cannot produce anything of kingdom value of Godly sort
of righteousness because it is of the flesh. The only thing
on the only one who can produce righteousness or righteous works
or good works is the one who has that life. And that's Christ.
Christ alone. He's the only one who is righteous. Okay, so without him we can do
nothing. It says, if a man abide not in
me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered and men gather
them and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If ye abide
in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what you will and
it shall be done to you. Herein is my Father glorified,
that ye bear much fruit. So shall you be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me,
so have I loved you. Continue in my love." Now, the question is this. Whenever
Jesus here says, abide in me and I in you, Or he says, he
that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much
fruit. Is he giving you a command to abide in him? No, he's not giving you a command. Number one, to give a command
necessarily imposes that, supposes that you have the ability to
carry that command out. Okay? But that doesn't, you know, God
doesn't give us commands just because we can carry them out.
There's a lot of things that God has commanded that we can't
carry out. And he's commanded those things.
Matter of fact, all the law was given and commanded to show forth
the fact that we can't keep the law. Okay. But this is not a
condition. This is not saying if you will
abide in me, just hang on and abide in me, then I'll produce
much fruit in you. No, that's not what he's saying.
He's given us a statement of fact. The ones who will produce
fruit are the ones who are abiding in him. And it's not a condition
that we have to keep. It's a statement of fact of who
we actually are and what we actually do. Now that word abide there,
the King James translates that word 61 times as abided. Okay. But it also translates
or uses that word behind this word abide, the Greek word behind
this word, 16 times to remain, 15 times to dwell, 11 times to
continue, nine times to tarry, three times to endure. And so
we kind of get the understanding or the definition by God's word
that This word means just to dwell, to continue, to tarry,
to endure, to be, okay, to be. Whenever a branch abides in the
vine, is that branch clinging on to the vine and holding on?
No, what's it doing? It's just being there. It's just
being there. Now there's a biblical word for
what we are talking about here. And that's the word rest. The
branch is just resting in the vine. The branch is just resting. It's not clinging to the vine
to keep itself in the vine. And it's not pressing itself
to produce fruit. You don't see them branches out
there squeezing to try to push out some fruit. Now what's it
doing? It's just resting in the vine.
And the vine is producing everything that that branch needs for its
life and for its productivity, its activity. All the activity
of that branch stems from the vine and the life that's in the
vine. Okay? So whenever we talk about
abide in Christ, this isn't something that you can tell us how to do.
You cannot tell someone how to abide in Christ. We abide in
Christ because Christ has given us faith to trust in him and
to abide means to rest in what he has done for us or to trust
that all the promises of God about him producing fruit in
us comes from him. We had, we preached on, it's
been a while back, but we preached on a message, and I can't remember
now exactly the title that I put to that message, but the question
is, is, you know, how do I know that I'm doing the works of God?
How do I know that I'm doing the works of God? You know, God
has promised that he will work in us to will and to do his good
pleasure, right? Okay, well that's producing fruit.
Jesus says, faithful is he that calleth you who also will do
it. So he's the one doing it. Okay. Our preservation, our perseverance,
that's by the Holy Spirit doing it in us. So whenever we talk
about abiding, this abiding in Christ comes not naturally, but
supernaturally. We abide because. Through the
power of the Holy Spirit in giving new life, we become a new creation. And in that new creation, we
are given not a natural faith, but a supernatural faith. One
of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is what? Faith. So that tells
me that this is not a common faith. This faith that it's talking
about here is a gift of the Holy Spirit. And so it isn't had by
everyone. It's only given by those that
the Holy Spirit has given it to. And so the elect of God receive
a type of faith that clings to, that trust in, or if you will,
dwells in, remains in, tarries in, abides in the promises of
what Christ has said. Now, what has Christ said? Well,
Christ has said, that He will do everything for us. Not only
to get salvation, but to keep that salvation. Everything that
we need in salvation, whether it's the legal part, to stand
before God righteous, or whether it's the experiential part of,
you know, living, having, moving and living and having our being,
it's gonna be in Christ. He's gonna be the center portent
of that. The child of grace doesn't need to be taught how to abide
because the Spirit gives us faith and that faith rests in or abides
in what Christ does. And so this abiding is the work
of the Spirit in us. Now, notice if you would, in
verse five, it says, I am the vine, you're the branches. He
that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth fruit.
Without me, you can do nothing. So here again, we're reminded
that this is an inward work of the Spirit of Christ that causes
us to abide and to bring forth fruit. Okay, it isn't about us
getting our little list out of what we need to do or listening
to some, you know, Dr. Phil or somebody like that, giving
us all these life lessons that we need to know to learn how
to be a better abider, okay? It's gonna come, if you would,
naturally. It's gonna come naturally. Now we encourage others to be
faithful, okay? We encourage people to be faithful.
But brother, we know that this is His Word. Now, I got a litany
of verses here, and if you wanna follow along with me, you can. If not, you can write them down
and go back and read them later, if you wanna go back and read
them later. But there's a bunch here, so I'm gonna read fast.
So if you're turning, turn fast, and if you're writing, write
fast. But in Psalms 92 in verse 12,
the Bible says this, the righteous shall flourish. Now I'm going to take God at
his word that the righteous shall flourish. Who are the righteous?
Well, the righteous are those who are in Christ Jesus. It's
not the ones who act righteously. It's the ones who are righteous.
Now we know again, there's only one who's righteous. The Bible
says that God is look down from heaven and he finds that there's
none who understands, that there's none who seek after God. There's
none that does righteous. No, not one. So it isn't people
who are doing righteousness. It's those who are righteous,
the righteous. And we, the elect, are righteous
because of imputation. God has imputed that righteousness
of Christ to us. So then it's not us, Christ. It's His righteousness that He
performed, that He is, that God looks at. It's not our performance. God looks at Christ's obedience,
not our obedience. God looks at Christ's faithfulness,
not our faithfulness. God looks at Christ's death. Therefore, we didn't have to
die. Christ took that for us. So see,
He's not only a substitute in taking our sins and dying for
them, but he's also the substitute for the life that is required. He's the substitute of all that
is righteous and righteous living. He kept the law in its totality. And therefore God accredits all
that obedience to us, even though we're disobedient often. He credits that obedience to
us. And so. We see here that the scripture
says, the righteous shall flourish like a palm tree. He shall grow
like a cedar in Lebanon. So we have the promise of God
that the righteous or the people of God shall flourish and shall
grow. Okay. Whenever we talk about
something flourishing or growing, that is basically producing some
kind of fruit, right? The grass grows, although it's
not producing a fruit or a vegetable itself, it still is producing
fruit. That grass seed is producing
the fruit of a blade. If a tree is not a fruit tree
or something like that, what's it doing? It's producing leaves
and maybe producing a flower or something like that. It is
growing and it is flourishing. Well, the Bible here says that
the righteous shall flourish and shall grow. In Psalms 125
in verse one, the Bible says, They that trust in the Lord shall
be as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abideth forever. So here, this is telling us something
about us. And again, this whole thing that Jesus is teaching
is a teaching about the fact of the matter, who we are in
Christ Jesus. A Christian, someone who is born
from above, this is who they're going to be. They're going to
be this kind of person. And this person is not going
to be moved, but they're going to abide forever. The Bible says
that there are going to be some wheat among the tares, sheep
among the goats, or goats among the sheep, tares among the wheat,
that's going to happen. And sometimes we're not even
going to know who's who, but it will be made manifest in time
who those people will be. The Bible says that those people
that are not really of us, that they will eventually leave us.
They'll go out of us. Why? Well, either because of
doctrinal purity puts them in odds with us, the fact that they
can't remain under suffering, compromise, the world, I mean,
anything, just giving up. Something is going to eventually
happen and they're going to be separated from the wheat. That's why the Bible says, you
know, don't pluck them up because you don't know who's who. You
know, I've known a lot of people in my lifetime that has attended
church for years and years and seem to be very faithful, kind,
compassionate, loving, godly people. that's turned out to
come out and now despise God, even claim to be atheists now,
reject God, live in immoral lifestyles. And it's just, you know, you
never would have thought that. And so if we pluck somebody up,
you know, they may look bad to us, but they may really be one
of God's children. And then we may keep people around
that look great to us that's really not. And so that's why
we need to leave those things to the Lord and only follow what
scripture tells us. You know, we remove people as
the Bible has, has taught us. But, um, but anyway, this, uh,
this being removed, the child of grace will not be removed
from the gospel. He won't be removed from what
Christ has done. The central message of the gospel
is Christ alone. And he won't be removed, he'll
abide in that forever. In Psalms 138, verse eight, it
says, the Lord will perfect that which concerneth me. Thy mercy,
O Lord, endureth forever. Forsake not the works of thine
own hands. So we see here that the Bible
teaches that it's the Lord who is going to perfect the things
in me. It's not me taking the appropriations
of prayer Bible and preaching and the church and if I do enough,
you know, if I use enough of the means there that I'm going
to keep growing and keep growing and keep growing. No, it's the
work of God in me. That's going to cause me to grow.
He's going to perfect that which concerneth me. And how did he
do that? Well, the way that he perfected
me is by giving me Christ. That's how I was perfected. Again,
remember, Adam is never going to be perfect. He can't be perfect. Adam is left for the dung heap
as all Adam is. Matter of fact, at the end of
this life, we're going to cast away this, uh, body that is,
uh, corruptible. And that's why one of these days
at the resurrection, we're going to be raised incorruptible with
a new body that doesn't know sin. that isn't cursed with sin. And so we are made perfect because
of Christ. And he's not going to forsake
the work of his own. He's going to continue in us to preserve us, to keep
us, to produce fruit in us. Ecclesiastes 3.14 says, I know
that whatsoever God doeth, It shall be forever. Nothing can
be put to it. Nor anything taken from it. And
God do with it that men should fear before him. So here we see
that anything that's done of heavenly value, anything that's
done of spiritual nature, it's God that does it. He's the one
that shall do it. And whatever he does shall be
forever. So we ought to, you know, any, we don't believe this,
but there are people out there that believes that you can be
saved and lose your salvation. by being too sinful, you lose
your salvation. Well, here it says that if the
Lord has done it, it's gonna be forever. Nothing can be put
to it. Now listen, and this is very
important, because a lot of times people miss it on this. There's
a teaching out there that we can be more sanctified than we
are now, that sanctification is a progressive thing of us
becoming more and more and more holy in and of ourselves, that
we become more and more holy. But the Bible does not teach
that. Matter of fact, it teaches that,
as I've said, the flesh is just flesh and cannot please God.
It doesn't get more holy. And that which is in you by the
new creation, that new birth, that spirit of God that's in
you is perfect and cannot sin. So if that cannot be perfected
upon or done anything to, and the flesh can't get any better,
then where is your growth in holiness? We grow in the grace
and knowledge of Christ. We become more aware of what
He has done and what He's doing for us. And we grow more and
more aware of our inadequacy, of our inability. We become more
or less dependent upon ourselves and more dependent upon Christ. That's why I say, you know, having
been, you know, Christian now for some years, and everything,
it seems that every year, the more I read the Bible and the
more I study and see of Christ and his holiness and his righteousness,
the more wicked I see myself. And it isn't that I'm sinning
less than I did five years ago, or that I've become more holier
than I was five years ago. It seems now, at least experientially,
it seems I sin more now than I did back then. But the reason
for that is because I see Christ more now than I see myself back
then. There were things that I might
have been sinning about that, you know, either I didn't know
was sin or that I just like to hide as sin. You know, we like
to hide sin. We are easy on ourselves when
it comes to sin. Now, we're usually pretty hard
on others when they sin. But we're pretty easy on ourselves
about sin. We try to justify all of our
sin. But what a lot of people don't
understand is that the scripture teaches that it isn't so much
the actions that we do, but what we actually are. In and of our
nature, we are rebels against God. Our nature is a natural
nature and it sins against God. Everything that we put our hand
to is seeing the Bible says that which is done. That's not a faith
is seeing so the natural man anything that he does is seeing
whether it be good or bad and Most people think well if I do,
you know, if I've committed adultery or if I've you know Stolen something
or if I was more false witness or you know been an idolater,
you know, then then I'm seeing Now actually, you know going
to work and working Apart from the faith of Christ in you, that's
sin. To do, feed the widows, to help
the orphans, apart from faith in Christ, that's sin. I mean, these Shriners, they
do all kinds of good deeds for children, but they're all, they're
Satan worshipers. I mean, the whole Mason, the
whole Masonic scheme is all about doing worship for Satan. Now,
a lot of the guys aren't told that at the beginning, but ultimately
that's what it is. And eventually if they stay in
that long enough, they'll learn that. But even at the lowest levels,
Christians shouldn't be involved in that because they have to
take an oath that they saying that they are in darkness and
only the Masonic lodge can give them light. Now, how can a Christian
do that? I don't mean to get sidetracked,
but it's crazy. No. So whenever we are looking
at this passage, it says it shall be forever. Nothing can be put
to it. If nothing can be put to the work of God in you, then
nothing can be put to it. I mean, it says what it says
and nothing can be taken away. Here's the little phrase that
I use all the time here, and you guys are familiar with it.
but I've said it before. We're going to do all the works
that God has ordained for us to do before the foundation of
the world. It is him who worked for we are
his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which
God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. So the
works that God has ordained for us, we're not going to do no
more works than God has ordained no more and no less. You're going
to do every good work that God has ordained for you. That's
the promise of God. Now, I used to spend a lot of
time worrying whether or not I was going to be faithful to
God. I used to worry that I was going
to be, you know, am I going to find the will of God and do obey
God? and produce, you know, good works. Am I going to, or am I going
to, you know, cop out on it and not do the good works? You know,
here's all these good works that God wants me to do, but I didn't
do them. Has anybody else been in that
situation? Have you ever thought that way? I think if we're all honest with
this, with ourselves, we've been there at some point in time,
we've thought, you know, I'm not doing enough good works. And maybe you're trying to do
something to where you're doing more good works. You know, I'm
trying to do as many good works as I can. Well, at the end of
the day, there's going to, you're going to do as many good works
as God has ordained for you and no more and no less than God
has ordained for you. If God's ordained say, let's
say 900 good works in your lifetime. Okay. I don't know how many,
but you say 900. You're not going to do 901 and you're not going
to do 899. You're going to do 900. Now the answer to the question
that I talked about in that other sermon, how do we know when we're
doing the works of God? We can't know. We don't know. Is it my flesh being religious
or is it God at work in me? How do I know the difference
between that? How do you know that the good works that you're
doing is not your flesh trying to be religious, doing what it
thinks it ought to do, seeing what the Bible says, and then
going out in your own strength, trying to do it. How do you know
the difference between that and actually God producing good works
in you? Well, we can't know that. Because so many of the things
that God has admonished us to do, the natural man can mimic
that to some degree or another. We can go to church. We can pray.
We can give to the church. We can go visit the widows and
the orphans. We can preach. We can sing. We
can do all those things and mimic that. So what does that mean for us?
If we don't know, then what do we need to do? Abide in Christ. We just need to rest in the promise
that God is doing that. He is working in us to will and
to do His good pleasure. He's working in us to do that.
And so that's why I say nothing can be put to it, nothing can
be taken from it. We're not going to be doing more or we're not
going to be doing any less. Why? Because God does it, not
us. In Isaiah 46 in verse four, the
Bible says this, and even to your old age, I am he, even to
whore hares will I carry you. You kids know what whore hares
is? Anybody? See these gray hares? That's what whore hares is. It
says, even to whore hares will I carry you. I have made and
I will bear. Even I will carry and I will
deliver you. Now that was I wills, right? Not you wills. He says I will
carry you. You believe the Lord's faithful
whenever he says he'll carry you? He says I will bear. He's gonna bear you up under
whatever load it is that He puts upon you. He's gonna bear you
up in that. Abide in Him. Those who are abiding
in Him, resting in Him, knows that He will bear them up in
new season. He says, even I will carry and
will deliver you. In Jeremiah chapter 32 and verse
40, the Bible says this, and I will make, notice the I wills
again here, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them
that I will not turn away from them to do them good. But I will
put my fear in their hearts. Now that's the Lord is going
to. He's promised to do that to put the fear of God in him.
The Bible says that the fear of God is beginning of wisdom.
The Bible says that it's only those who are born from above.
Those are the only ones who fear God. The wicked don't fear God. The reprobate don't fear God.
But we do. But that's because God has put
that fear in us. But look, why? Why does he do
this? Why is he the one who is going
to do these things that they shall not depart from me? See,
he's going to make this covenant or he made this covenant so that
we will not turn away from. Him but do good that he will
put the fear in our hearts that we shall not depart from him
See my my not abiding Is non-existent. There is no way that I cannot
abide in the vine Why because he is the one who's going to
carry me. He's the one who's going to bear me up He's the
one who is going to put the fear in my heart that I shall not
depart from him See, it's a supernatural work of God. We trust in Christ
to do this for us. He is the one who is going to
cause us to be this way. The life of Christ in us. In Jude chapter one, verse 24,
the Bible says, now unto him that is able to keep you from
falling and to present you faultless before his presence of his glory
with exceeding joy. He's the one that keeps you from
falling. It's not you keeping yourself faithful. It's not you
keeping yourself, and there again, like the illustration I said,
that branch isn't hanging on to the vine, saying, no, I'm
not gonna fall off. I'm not gonna be taken away.
No, it's Him. He's the one that keeps you from
falling. The Bible says, Those who endure to the end shall be
saved. So is that a command for you
to endure that we got to suck it up and endure everything?
No, that's just a statement of fact. Those who endure to the
end shall be saved. That's saying the ones who are
saved, they're going to endure. Why are they going to endure
right here? Because He's the one that's going to carry us.
He's the one that's going to deliver us. He's the one that's going
to put it in our hearts to fear Him. He's the one that's going
to keep us from falling. He keeps us from falling. You
say, well, wait a minute. I know a lot of people that have
just fallen away. Some people may fall away for a short time.
They may become dormant for some time. But there again, then,
whenever the husbandman comes and prunes that branch, What
happens then? Then it begins to start producing
fruit again, right? When it becomes overtaken, then
it needs to be pruned. There comes a pruning process.
And so the Lord takes us through times in our lives where we don't
seem to look to Him. Things seems distanced, things
cold. He may let us wander for some time. but he always will
bring us back. He always will do that. A child
of grace will never ultimately can, you know, deny him and move
away and quit on him because he will keep us from that. Ezekiel
chapter 11, it says, and I will give them one heart and I will
put a new spirit within you. Notice it's a new spirit, not
your old spirit revived. Okay. He's going to put a new
spirit in you. He says that I will take out
the stony heart. I will take the stony heart out
of their flesh and will give them a heart of flesh. He doesn't
rework that old heart and make it new again. He gives you a
completely different part. And why does he do that? That
they may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and do
them. And they shall be my people and
I will be their God. See, God does this. God puts
the new spirit in you. He gives you a new heart. So that you will walk in the
statutes and you will keep them and do them. Now I'm not going to. Paul made
a statement. He says that we should not lean
on the arm of flesh. If you're leaning on the arm
of flesh, or if you're counting on your tenacity, counting on
your ability, counting on your stick-to-it-ness, then you're baking on the arm
of the flesh. You're going to always fall. But here it says, He is going
to give us a new spirit so that we might walk in His statutes
and keep them and do them. See, if we look to the arm of
the flesh, then we're not trusting in Christ. But the person who
has been born from above has been given a faith that rests
in Christ, that abides in him and what he is doing for them
and in them. And that's enough for them. They
don't need anything else. They don't need extra stuff.
what Christ has done and the fact of knowing that He is working
in me and that everything that He has ordained for me is going
to come to pass in me, then we rest in that knowing He promised
that He's going to do it. And if He's doing it, even though
it doesn't look like it, maybe at the time, it is doing it. He is doing it. It's being accomplished. Now you see where the weight
and the load comes off whenever you start thinking that way? Whenever Jesus preached and said,
come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, I'll give you
rest. I can tell you, brethren, sometimes
the Christian life isn't rest. It's burdensome. But how is that
rest experienced? Whenever we quit trying to work
for ourselves and trust that God is doing it all. Whenever
we look to Christ, who's doing the work, we look to him and
we trust that he's doing it, that he's done everything that's
needed in the past for our, our salvation before God, and that
he's doing everything in us for our experience of that salvation
in our walk with God. Our legal salvation before God
is all Christ, and our spiritual walk on this earth is by Christ. And faith trusts that that's
being done. Faith isn't concerned about how
much I'm doing and how much I'm not doing. It just looks to the
Word of God, and as much as in me is, as much as I understand,
as much as I know, this is what I'm gonna do, and God's gonna
be the one who gives the increase in that. Ezekiel 36 says, I will put my
spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues, and ye
shall keep my judgments and do them. Now, someone's gonna say,
well, That means that I'll never sin.
I mean, if what you're saying is
true, that He's the one that's going to do it in us and make
us this way, then how come there's still sin in my life? How come
He didn't make me do His statutes and judgments then? Well, this
is a whole other sermon, but brethren, God has purposed that
sin happen for His purposes. There is sin that continues in
the child of grace, as well as the reprobate for God's purposes.
God teaches us through that. Let me ask you, have you not
learned spiritual things from the times that you've been disobedient
to God and he's chasing you in that? We learn these things. We learn
our dependency upon Christ from the times that we fail him. If
I had never failed Christ, I wouldn't have known of my need in that
area for him. So don't worry, you will keep
his judgments. Every one of them that he requires
for you to do, he's going to make sure that you do them. 1
Thessalonians chapter 5. Now, with that being said, I'm
not saying we'll go out and live like hell. Do whatever you want
to do. Que sera, sera. You know, I'm
not saying that will go out and sin because grace is going to
abound. I'm not saying that either. But
the love of Christ will constrain us. It'll constrain us. But I am saying this, that you're
surely not going to produce more fruit than the vine gives you
life to do it. Just like these branches out
here. There's only a lot and so much fruit that one branch
is going to produce. And that all depends on how much
life the vine pumps into it to produce it. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse
23, the Bible says this, and the very God of peace sanctify
you wholly, not H-O-L-Y, but W-H-O-L-L, completely. God has sanctified you completely. And he says, and I pray God,
your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless under
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then Paul, by the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote this about being preserved
blameless under the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said,
faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it. So it wasn't just a desire of
Paul that this happened. Paul is saying, this is what
I am praying for you. But here's the good news. Faithful
is he. You're not faithful. You're not
going to be able to do it. I can't make you do it. But faithful
is he who called you. He will do it. He will keep you
blameless. He will preserve you until his
coming. Now, brethren, that should be
a comfort to your soul. I pray it is a comfort to your
soul. To the child of grace, it is
a comfort to the soul to know that this old damning nature
that can't produce anything, that can't appropriate the means,
that can't do anything right, and that as hard as I want to
please the Lord, and so oftentimes that I fail Him, That I am doing
everything exactly according to His purpose. That He is preserving
me. He is keeping me. That even though
I want to walk away sometimes, sometimes I don't want to be,
you know, involved in any of this stuff. You know, hey listen,
there's times that we don't want to be here. I know that. But
for all truth, there's times that, ah, time for church. You
know? It doesn't happen often, but
there's times that I don't feel like being in church. Long days
at work, long week at work, a lot of stuff going on. I don't want
to be in church today. I just don't feel like it. I
don't feel like being around anybody. Don't want to go up
and put on my smile, whatever it might be. It's a shame that
we think that way towards each other, that we can't be real
with each other. Anyway, there's times like that. Well, praise
the Lord that there's a comfort for the soul to know that despite
my failings, he is faithful. Whenever we are unfaithful, he
is faithful. 2 Corinthians 2.14, the Bible says,
now thanks be unto God, which always causes us to triumph in
Christ. Do you realize that God is always
causing you to triumph in Christ? And make it manifest, the Savior
of His knowledge by us in every place. Thanks be to God who causes
us to triumph. Not thanks be to you and your
law keeping or you and your good work doing. No, thanks be to
God which causes us to triumph in Christ and make it manifest
the savor of His knowledge by us in every place. What do we
talk about? We talk about what Christ has
done, not about what we're doing. I hear these churches and these
people all the time going on and on about how much they do,
how much they serve the Lord, how much, you know, what all
they're involved in, all their accolades, all this stuff. I've mentioned to you guys before,
you know, Southern Baptists, they used to hand out certificates
for How many baptisms, you know, this church in the category of
zero to 99 members from 100 to 199 members, you know, had this
category groups and they give out, they give out certificates
for however many baptisms you give. That's nuts. Now, what do we do? We savor
his knowledge. We talk about Christ and what
he has done. Whenever someone compliments you for something
that you've done to help them, what is it? Well, praise the
Lord. It's only because of Him. If it wasn't for the Lord in
me, I probably might not have done that, you know. By nature,
I'm not so much of a helpful person, but because of Christ. Ephesians 2 verse 10 says, For
we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works.
Which got it before I kind of already read that. It was out
of time. 2 Corinthians 9, 8 says and God
is able. We're not able are we? God is able. And God is able
to make all grace abound towards you, that ye always having all
sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. See again, you're not going to
miss out on any good work. God's going to make sure that
you abound in every good work. Not every good work that you
do, but in every good work that He has ordained for you. God
is able to make all grace abound toward you. So that ye have in
all sufficiency and all thanks That means that you'll have everything
that you need. All sufficiency means that that's
everything that you need. You have everything that you
need in all things to abound to every good work. And that's
because He is able to make that grace abound in you. See, we're
dependent upon Him, brother. We find our rest in Him. Philippians
1.6, being confident of this very thing, that He, which hath
begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus
Christ. Who's going to perform this good
work? It's going to be Jesus. He's
performing it. So the glory ought to be given
to him, right? The honor. Hebrews or excuse me, 2nd Timothy
418 and the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work and will
preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom, to whom be glory forever
and ever. Now, that seems to be an odd
one. He's going to deliver me from every evil work. Again, I go back to what I talked
about, that all things that have been given for us to do has been
ordained of God. Just like this, remember whenever
I talked to you guys about Adam and whenever he was created,
how he was created natural. He wasn't created spiritually
alive and then he died spiritually whenever he ate of the fruit.
Okay. He was created natural. According
to one Corinthians, he's made a natural man. Okay. He was made already without the
ability to keep God's law. And there are some that disagree
with, with that position, uh, that says, Well, wait a minute,
the Bible says that God looked down on everything that he created
and he said that it was good. So how could Adam have been made
with this nature to sin if God made everything good? Well, it
isn't that God made Adam to be a good person because he didn't.
Otherwise he would not have sinned, right? To make something and to look
at it and say that it is good, means that whenever you look
upon that which you've created, you're pleased because of the
purpose for which you created it. It is fulfilling the purpose
in which you created it. If I, you know, with my hands,
you know, weld up something with a welder and I make some kind
of a, you know, say I make my own grill, smoker, grill and
smoker. You know, and I get done making
that thing and I look at it and I say, hey, that's good. Why?
Because it does what it was intended to do. But if I take that same
same metal that I made that grill and that smoker and I turn around
and I make a soapbox car for my kids to ride in, then I look
at that and I say, hey, that's good. Well, God, whenever he
made Adam, made Adam to be the vessel in which sin and death
would enter into the world. And so Adam was created natural,
and the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God,
for they're spiritually discerned. So Adam was ripe for being the man in whom sin
and death would enter. Why? Because he couldn't keep
God's law. So whenever God gave him the law, which he intended
to do, and Adam broke the law, which God intended for Adam to
do, and sin and death came into the world, which God intended
to happen, then God can look and say, it happened exactly
the way that I purposed it, that's good. Whenever Joseph was sold
into slavery after being thrown in the pit and whooped up on
by his brothers and was sold into slavery, those men thought
it would be, I mean, that was evil for what they did, but the
Lord said, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. He
didn't say he turned it around for good. He said he meant it.
God ordained Joseph's being sold into slavery by his brothers.
God meant that whole act for good. So something that can be
evil can be looked on even though it's evil and will be judged
accordingly by God as evil. But the action in and of itself
and the purpose from which What happens from it is derived. God
can look and say it's good. Best example I can give you,
Christ Jesus being crucified. You by wicked hands have taken. You crucify God's son. That's the
most evil, wicked, because he had not sinned. There was no
accusation that they could throw at him at all. He was guilty
of nothing. and they took and killed him.
They mocked him, they beat him, they spit on him, they blasphemed
him, and then they killed him. Well, they crucified him. He
gave up his own life. They didn't take it. But what
did God say? He said that was done by the
determinate counsel of God. Out of an evil thing, one of
the best things that could ever happen happened, and that was
the salvation God's people. So see, it's all in the perspective.
It's all in the purpose. For us, it is evil. For God,
it's not because God is holy and nothing that God does can
be considered sin. So that is why we can look here
and say that he can deliver me from every evil work. How does
he do? How does he do that? Well, for
one, Christ covers every sin that we ever do by his death.
but he also turns and uses those purposes, those evil works, those
things. He delivers us from those by
using those to teach us. Hebrews 7.25, wherefore he is
able also to save them to the other most that come unto him
by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
The Lord even that right now is making intercession for his
people He has saved them to the uttermost. You can't be any more
saved than you are right now. You're no more saved than you
was whenever you first was given knowledge of it. He has saved
you to the uttermost. You can't get more saved. He has saved you. That's why
it says in Hebrews 10, 14. For by one offering, He has perfected
forever them that are sanctified. So brother, we have a clear example
of scripture, many examples in scripture that tells us the fact
that God has promised to be the source, not only of the believer's
salvation, but of their daily walk. They abide in him because
he causes them to. He preserves them, causes them
to persevere. It's all the work of Christ from
eternity to eternity. Now we do again, like I said,
we remind each other those things, right? We tell each other, be
faithful, carry on, hold strong, be faithful, all those things.
But why do we do that? Is it so that the person might
pull themselves up out of their bootstraps? No, it's so that
they might turn around and think on Christ again. Keep thinking
on Christ. That's why we keep reminding
you to think on Christ. Think on Him. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians
5, 11, it says, wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify
one another even also as ye do." What do we comfort each other
with? Well, we comfort each other with what Christ has done. Comfort
ye, comfort ye my people. Tell them what the Lord hath
done. We comfort each other by telling
them what the Lord has done, not by how good you're doing. See, I don't comfort somebody
by saying, hey, don't worry about things, you're doing a great
job. You're being, you're being the best Christian you can be.
You're so faithful in all these things. You just keep on doing
it and don't worry. God's looking at your heart and
looking at your actions and he knows. No, we keep pointing them
to Christ. Keep pointing them to Christ.
See, even his ministers were to do this. 1 Timothy 4, it says,
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times, Some
shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits
and doctrines of devils." See, they're going to go out from
us. They're going to depart from the faith. "...speaking lies
and hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron." Now,
this is running rampant today, brother. We're seeing this. Even
now, today. "...forbidding to marry and commanding
to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received
with thanksgiving, of them which believe and know the truth. There
you go, it's not wrong to eat meat. For every creature of God is
good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving.
For it is sanctified by the word of God in prayer. Now, he says,
if thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be
a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of
faith and of good doctrine, Where unto thou hast attained? Put
the brethren in remembrance of what? That it's okay to eat meat? No, not that. Keep them in remembrance
that there are going to be people that are going to depart from
the faith. They're not going to abide. They're
going to depart. They're going to give heed to
seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies and
hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with an odd iron, forbidding
demerit. All these things that they're
going to become and do is because they have First and foremost,
departed from the faith. Why? Well, number one, because
that faith that they departed from was a faith that they only
knew by human knowledge. See that body of doctrine that
they departed from was only something that they knew in their head.
They didn't know in their heart. They knew by some human wisdom
and reasoning, they gathered the facts, but they didn't know
it in their heart because they hadn't been born from above.
And they departed because they were never part of us. Peter
said that, right? They went out from us because
they were not among us. If they were among us, they would
have remained. So here, a good minister is one
who is going to put the brethren in remembrance that listen, The
days are evil and people are going to start to depart from
the faith and all these weird things are going to be taught
and said. And a lot of people are going to start, you know,
requiring this and requiring that. And listen, he said, you
know, don't look to that. Keep looking to Christ. Abide
in Christ. 2 Timothy 2, 11 says it is a
faithful saying for if we be dead with him, we shall also
live with him. If we suffer, we shall also reign
with him. If we deny him. He also will
deny us if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful. He cannot
deny himself. Of these things, put them in
remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not
about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the fears.
Brethren, to abide is the work of God. It's only being done
by God in us. We abide because he is faithful
to keep us. As I said earlier, the vine supports
the branch. The branch gets its life from
the vine. The vine's life produces the
vine's fruit through the branch. But the branch doesn't have any
conditions to keep itself in this way. It just is. And so
we've entered into that rest whenever we look only to the
Lord Jesus Christ alone for our salvation, eternal and experiential. To rest is to abide. We enter
that rest whenever we are granted and given to believe. That's
why I say, there are a lot of people who believe, they say
they believe on the Lord Jesus, but they're still looking to
their works and their self-righteousness. They're looking to a decision
that they made to get them saved. That their destiny was hinged
on whether or not by their free will, they chose Christ or rejected
Christ. And so, they stay in that position,
as long as they remain faithful in their good works to Christ. But the Bible says just the opposite.
We don't get into Christ that way. We don't stay in Christ
that way. We look to him. That's why I
say that just because somebody is believing on a religious system
that says Jesus, that talks about the Bible, that he may say sovereign,
you know, the God is sovereign. You know, I hear that by people
a lot who despises free and sovereign grace, but they'll, you know,
they talk about God's sovereignty all the time. See, it doesn't
matter what they're saying is what are they, are they believing
upon the word Jesus Christ? Not that he exists and not that
he died. Not that he was resurrected.
There's demons that believe that kind of stuff. There were people
that were alive during Jesus's time that believed those facts,
but yet they were not saved. They were not born from above. They were not resting in Christ
alone. Matter of fact, Paul dealt with
that to the Galatians whenever the Judaizers would come in and
said, yeah, we agree with Paul. Salvation is by grace, but it's
kept by works. You've got to continue in the
law of Moses. If you don't continue in the
law of Moses, then, uh, then it shows that you're not really
His. And see, that's what's being preached today by a lot of men
like John MacArthur and guys like that, who teach that, yes,
we're saved by sovereign grace, but then there is this, uh, uh,
Lordship salvation that we must keep. You know, if you're not
faithful, uh, then it proves that you're not His. Uh, you
know, how, how do we know about what standard are we looking
at? The only standard that is ever given in scripture is Jesus
Christ. And are you faithful to that
standard? None of us are. So how do we know where's the
standard of who's being faithful and who's not being faithful?
Standard is Christ. If we're not faithful to that
standard, then, you know, we're not faithful period. So it comes down to not what
we see externally, but what we trust is happening internally. A couple other things I want
to add here before we get away. Faith is a spiritual gift. It's
not a natural ability. To rest in Christ is a spiritual
gift. And God's sovereignty is never
honored and never glorified and his subjecting it to man's work
or will. Even our faith, that faith is
given and empowered and directed by Christ himself. It's never
left up to man's will. As I said, I know a lot of people
that despise what we believe, but yet they talk about God's
sovereignty. And one of the things that they'll
say is, well, God in his sovereignty has allowed us to choose. That
way, man is culpable. That way, man is accountable
before God. That way, God can be loved with
a genuine love. You know, God doesn't want robots
that he forces to love him. Well, we don't teach that. We
don't believe that. The Bible doesn't teach that.
That love that we have is a genuine love. But however, the natural
man doesn't have that love. It has to be given to him in
the spiritual birth. That love that loves God comes
in the spiritual birth. Same thing with faith. The faith
that looks to Christ alone and rests in Him alone is a spiritual
faith, not a natural faith. It isn't about me trusting this
chair to hold me up if I sit down in it. It's not that faith
that we're talking about. That's a natural man's faith.
We're talking about a godly faith. And so God's sovereignty is never
honored and glorified in Him subjecting that sovereignty to
human men to keep conditions. Okay? Sovereignty and man's free
will are not compatible. They're not mutually exclusive
either. God's will is the only one that
is free. And so the whole notion of conditions
to either get saved or to stay safe is ridiculous whenever we
look at scripture. The exhortations that are given
to us in scripture are not legal demands or expectations of the
ability of the flesh and atom. but the description of the manner
in which the inward man is renewed by the Holy Ghost and desires
after the truth of God. See, these exhortations that
we have to abide in the vine, abide in me, these exhortations
are not, as I said, expectations of what we can do in our flesh,
but it's the description or the manner of how the inward man
is governed by the Holy Ghost Therefore, we run the race. We
mortify the deeds of the flesh. We seek those things that are
above. All those admonishments and exhortations of scripture.
Why? Because this is the life of the
vine that flows through the branch. One of the fruits is that we
do those things. There's no distinction in the two. They are one. This
is that which is wrought in the sons of God by him. By him. And He's the one who works in
us both the will and to do His good pleasure. Those who are
yet dead in their sins cannot pay heed to these exhortations.
We can't preach to other people, abide in Christ and He'll abide
in you. That can only be given in the new birth. So those who
are living by the power of God are stirred up in their pure
minds and they cannot look upon these exhortations without disdain.
Whenever I read the word of God and I see all this stuff about
be ye holy, keep this, keep that, do this, do that. It just, it
makes it even more hard for me when I look at that and see,
I can't do that. I can't keep that. So I have
to look to Christ and the promises that he's made that he is working
that out in me. Might not look like it to me
and it might not look like it to you. That's why we should
be very careful. with brothers and sisters in
Christ who we don't think have become spiritual enough, you
know? You may have a guy over here and he just jabber jaws
about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, about all kinds of stuff, but has no
knowledge of Christ, according to the Word of God, has a zeal
for God, but not according to knowledge. But there on the other
hand, you have somebody over here that may not have a lot
of knowledge, but they in their heart, they really truly desire
God and they don't look very spiritual. They fall and fail
a lot of areas, but yet in their heart, they desire God after
the inward man. They desire to do what's right,
as Paul said, you know, but they realize, oh, wretched man that
I am. And so we gotta be careful in judging on the outside and
judging hypocritically. We need to judge and make right
judgments by the word of God. So lastly, in Romans nine, or
Romans six, verse 17 and 19, the Bible says, But God be thanked
that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from
the heart." Now again, look at who's being thanked because somebody
obeyed. That's why I said whenever we
do anything and somebody, you know, I try to keep this in my
mind every time someone pays me a compliment, whether, you
know, it's because of, you know, something I've done for them
or Whether it's a sermon that I've preached, you know, a lot
of times people will give you a compliment after a sermon,
said, you know, thank you for that. That was a good sermon
or you did a great job or whatever. You know, I try to keep this
in my mind and remember, you know, thanks needs to be to God
that I obeyed from the heart. Did I do the work? Yeah, I did
it. But thanks be to God that it was done. The obedience came
because It was God who did it in me. But thanks be to God that
we were servants, you were servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from
the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being
then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your
flesh. For as ye have yielded your members
servants to uncleanliness and to iniquity unto iniquity, Even
so now, so in like kind, just the way that you did this is
how you're gonna do this. Even so now, yield your members
servants to righteousness unto holiness. Now, let me ask, how
do you yield your members servants to uncleanliness and to iniquity? You just be who you are, right?
That's what I am. I'm unclean and full of iniquity.
That's the Bible's teaching of who we are in our natural self. We are full of uncleanliness
and full of iniquity. I don't have to work for that,
you know. I don't have to work for that. I just abide in my
flesh and that's who I am. Even so now, yield your members.
How do you yield your members, servants to righteousness unto
holiness? By abiding in Christ. Trust in
Him. Trust in the life that's in you,
that's been given to you by the Holy Spirit to produce those
things in you. You say, well, that sounds too
simple. You mean I really don't have
to do anything? Well, you'll do something. but I'm not telling
you to go do something. Does that sound contradictory?
Do you understand what I'm saying though? Whenever we're trusting in Christ
and trusting His promises, it's gonna be what it is. God's
gonna produce that. Every work in my past that I've
done, God has done that work. And everything I wanna do in
my future, God's gonna do that work. And I have that, to know. And so whenever I get on that
elevator and I'm thinking to myself, man, I'll just say something
to this person about Jesus. And then they get off the elevator
and I didn't say anything about Jesus. And then I walked away.
I said, man, I should have said something about Jesus to that
person. Guess what? That was ordained of God. In
my mind, you know what I've done? I've sinned in my own mind because
my conscience more witnesses that I should have said something.
But for some reason, the Lord restrained me from saying it.
He's got his purposes. To me, I will go to the Lord.
I said, Lord, forgive me for not saying that to that person. But guess what? That wasn't the
work that God had ordained for me to do. See how it works? On our perspective, on our side,
we do what we think needs to be done. A man deviseth his steps,
but the Lord direct or deviseth his path. Or the Lord directs
his steps. So even though we do see what
we need to do, think what we need to do, we do that, but always
know that God's will is being done. Whether we fail or we don't
fail, God's will is still being done. Our failure is part of
the process of God's will. And so that it is being done.
So all of this is to, is to encourage you and give you comfort brethren
to continue to rest in Christ. Don't, because of your feelings
of failure, look to trying to ramp up your works in the flesh. Well, if I just do more works,
then I'm going to be better. Your mindset and your activity
is all going to be for naught. It's to look to Him. Even so,
now yield your members, servants to righteousness unto holiness,
just in the same way as you did with your uncleanness and iniquity,
just by abiding. by abiding in Him. God's gonna
prompt you for this or that. He's gonna have you do this or
that. So God's think because their obedience was directly
caused by Him, not by themselves. Jesus said, abide in me and I
in you and you shall bear much fruit. Whenever we are trying to do
it ourselves, The fruit that we bear is fruits of the flesh. So let's look to Christ in all
of our works. Let's look to Christ in everything
for salvation. But let that be a comfort to
you. Let it be the comfort that you
looked for the rest that you can find and knowing that Jesus
is enough. It's so surprising to for me
that Christians that claim to be Christians that Jesus isn't
enough. It isn't enough just to say,
well, he did it all. His obedience was my obedience.
His death was my death. And God counted that for righteousness.
And if God counts that for righteousness, then who am I to say there's
some other righteousness that I can produce that's going to
be available to God? That's what he banked. The whole
everlasting covenant was all hinged upon the righteousness
of Jesus Christ. And that is given to you freely.
You didn't have to work for it. So why try? Not saying that I'm
not telling you don't try to, you know, don't do what you think
is right and all that kind of stuff. I'm just saying, why try
in your mind to produce a righteousness to make yourself acceptable to
God whenever Christ has done it all for you. And so, as I said, love of Christ
will constrain us. You don't have to worry about
the conviction of sin. The Holy Spirit's there to do
that too. You don't have to worry that
whenever you get off the beaten path, the Holy Spirit is going
to bring you back. You don't have to worry that
whenever you do something wrong, the forgiveness is there, but
the Holy Spirit will bring you to confess that before the Lord.
That's all part of the Holy Spirit's work. And so we trust God to
do God's work and not the arm of flesh. And so now with that,
maybe we can rest in Christ more. And we can also be more loving
with our brothers and sisters in Christ as we see the work
of God in them as well. Anybody got any questions, comments? All right, let's pray. Heavenly
Father, we thank you for the day and we thank you for your
grace that you've given us in Christ Jesus. We thank you for
the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And we thank you that
you have sent You've sent him to work in us, to will and to
do your good pleasure. That promise that we stand on
Lord, we know that you're doing these things in us and how often
in our daily lives we look and see our failures and we think
that we're not living up to the standard that we should or that
we're not doing what we should. And we very well may be sinning,
but we know that it's all according to your purpose and your plan
and that we've not been any less holy in your sight. or any more
holy because we've accomplished those things, but that your righteousness
stands in our place. And we're thankful for that because
we know that the standard is unattainable by us. And so we
need that righteousness that's perfect, that's pure, that's
never wavering in our place. And so thank you, Father, for
the imputation of righteousness because of the Lord Jesus Christ
on our behalf. Father, Lord, I pray that each
person here has been given to hear and understand these things.
Lord, I pray that it's become a comfort. Lord, I pray that
it's been truly a comfort to them to hear these words, to
know that it's you who is working to keep us, that we are looking
to you and trusting and relying upon you to be our source of
perseverance, to be our source of activity, Whether it be obedience
or whether it be the preaching of the gospel, we know that those
commands and obedience and that righteousness is trusting in
you and you alone. And so Lord, we just pray that
that has fallen on ears today that hear it and are grateful
for it and are thankful for it, but also Lord convicted of it
because of our desperate desires to try to please you in the flesh.
and think that we can produce a righteousness of our own that's
worthy of that. When in fact, that is what is
called unrighteousness by your word. So Father Lord, I just
pray that we might all look to you, love you, and that
we might love each other in the body of Christ here. And that
we might be patient with one another as you work and will
in our lives. And that you cause us to grow
in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ by the
measure of faith that you have determined. Lord, may we be patient
with each other, but may we continue to encourage one another as you've
commanded us to do. So Lord, we just thank you for
all that we have in Christ Jesus. And we ask it all in Christ's
name that we pray. Amen.