Thy People Shall

All right, brethren, let's turn in our Bibles to Isaiah chapter 60. Isaiah 60. We're gonna go to the Lord in prayer before we begin. Our gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, we come before you, a needy people with no strength in ourselves, no strength in our flesh, entirely dependent upon you, Father. We come to you only in the merits of our Lord Jesus. And we come to you, Lord, asking you to give us your spirit.

We pray for our brethren that are not with us today, Lord. Some are sick. We pray for Brother Cyril that is in pain, that you would comfort him. The infirmities that come with the age and Lord, be his comfort in spirit, in truth, in Christ, and even in body. Lord, we pray for those that are not able to assemble here today. Pray your hand be upon them. Keep them and teach them and bring them again. We pray for our brethren in other places where the gospel is going forth this morning, where you've sent your messenger and assembled your people. And we ask, Lord, that you would make your word effectual in the hearts of each one that you've sanctified, that Christ get all the glory.

And we ask that here. Lord, we pray this hour that we would see once again things that you have freely given to your people, and that they are Christ and in Christ, cause us to see our need of Him, increase our faith, increase our love. Lord, make us to desire none in this world but Christ. Make us be turned from the things of this life to Him alone. and help us now, Lord, to worship. We ask forgiveness for our unbelief, our doubting and our fears, looking to our own hands to provide as if we're our provider. Lord, we need forgiveness continually. We believe your word that you're faithful and just to forgive us for Christ's sake. And we ask, Lord, that you would for his sake.

Thank you for all your tender mercies. In Christ's name we pray, amen. All right, brethren, our subject here in Isaiah 60 is thy people shall. God declares to his church, he's speaking to his city, his church here, to you and me who've been called and blessed of God to believe the gospel, that's who he's speaking to. And he tells us here that salvation is all of the Lord. Nothing is of us, it's all of the Lord. And he tells us why God saves this way. You have the whole gospel in this one verse, and why God saves this way.

Here's our first point, verse 21. Here's our first point. Thy people also shall be all righteous. Here's the second point. They shall inherit the land forever. Here's the third point. How would this be so? the branch of my planting, the work of my hands.

And then lastly, why is all this so? Here's the reason God saves the way he saved, that I may be glorified. This verse tells us salvation is of the Lord, that he may get all the glory from his people. That's why salvation is of the Lord. There are no maybes here. Thy people shall. This is what shall be by God's sovereign grace. Everything in salvation is of God. Everything is freely given to us by grace. We didn't merit this. It's freely given to us of God, to whom he will give it. The people he saves are the work of his hands. We're not the work of our hands. We're the work of His hands.

And the inheritance that He gives is freely given. It's freely given. It's the same inheritance to each of His children. And it's freely given of God. And He saves this way. All this is done that He may be glorified. And it's certain. This shall be of His people and we shall give him the glory. Because this is the power of God. The power of God to save, the power of God to bring his people to give him all the glory. Now, let's take these one at a time.

First of all, God makes his people righteous in Christ. He makes his people righteous in Christ. He says there of his church, of his city, Thy people also shall be all righteous. The Lord's city, that city whose maker and builder is God, the Lord's city is a city made up of citizens that are all righteous.

Every citizen is righteous. In his church, every member is righteous. Now, all means every one of them. Every single individual one is righteous. And all means completely righteous. They're all, each, every one of them is completely, totally, thoroughly, perfectly righteous.

We see these surveys sometimes, you know, and it'll say the top 10 cities to live in in America, and it'll be based on things like the lowest taxes and the median income and the median cost of living and stuff like that. Well, the number one city that has ever been or will ever be is God's city. It's God's city. And the thing that makes it great is that every citizen in this city is all righteous. Wouldn't it be amazing to live in a city where everybody in that city was righteous and only did what's right? Wouldn't that be an amazing city to live in? Well, we're a member, we're citizens. You that are born of God, we're citizens of that city now. And someday, we're gonna be in that city all together where all shall be righteous.

Now, no sinner is righteous of ourselves. No sinner is accepted of God except it be the righteousness of God, and none of us are the righteousness of God of ourselves. We are all guilty sinners. We are all deserving of God's condemnation as we come into this world.

Each one sitting here right now in unbelief, if you're sitting here in unbelief, You are one breath away from eternal condemnation. And we don't know when that breath will be. The next one could be the last one. And except God have mercy, we will perish. We're at the mercy of God.

That ought to grasp our attention so much and grasp our focus to be so on God and his word that we don't think about anything else. That should just, because it's that important. This is vital, vital, vital. This should hold all our attention right here.

Now how is a sinner just with God? That's what we're talking about. How can a sinner be just with God? How can we be righteous before the all-knowing, all-seeking God? It's only by God's Son. It's only in His Son, the Lord Jesus. That's the only way. The only way.

The Lord Jesus is the only one who has ever obeyed God. I haven't, and you haven't. He's the only one that has obeyed God in perfection, in perfect righteousness. The man who is on the street in the gutter who's on drugs and drunk, he's never obeyed God. And you'll say, well I know that, that's right preacher, you got that right. And then God says to the preacher, his preacher, and to his people, you haven't either. You've never kept the law, you've never obeyed imperfection either.

If we're gonna be saved, and be righteous, it will be by one man's obedience. Go with me to Romans 5, and let's see this. Romans 5. Verse 19. As by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. By Adam's disobedience, everybody that's born of Adam was made sinners. So by the obedience of one, shall many be made righteous. By Christ's obedience only, those that shall be born of him are made righteous by him alone.

Look, moreover, the law entered. Why did the law enter? Was it for us to try to make ourselves righteous by it? No. It entered that the offense might abound, that we might see what sinners we are, that the law might declare every work and every thought and our whole nature nothing but sin. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.

That's the other thing we see. We see all our sin in this law, and we also see how grace abounded and how thoroughly righteous Christ is. because he obeyed it all. So as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might or shall grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord, by him alone, by him alone. He is the righteousness of God. I want you to think about this now.

You know, a man could be somewhat obedient when things are good and everything's going good for him. But when he starts to suffer, that's when we're out to disobey God. We don't ever fully obey him when things are good, but I'm saying, you do a little better when things are good, but when you start to suffer, that's when you're out to disobey. Do you think a man, if in this day and time, this life as it is now, if he can't obey God now, do you think he would obey God in hell? You say, well, of course not. But do you realize that Christ not only obeyed God when he was with his people and things were good and there was no harm around them, he not only obeyed God then, he obeyed God to the death of the cross. And the death of the cross is the second death that his people deserve. It's the death of hell. that his people deserved.

And he obeyed God and never wavered looking to the Father, even when he bore our sin and bore our curse and was bearing everything the devil could throw at him and everything men could throw at him. He was perfectly obedient to God. That's what God considers obedience. That's why we can only come to God in his son. And this obedience is in Christ. It's in Christ.

When the Lord saves, he gives us a new heart and he gives us faith to believe on Christ. And God imputes the righteousness of Christ to us. He robes us in Christ's righteousness. He doesn't do it to make us righteous. He does it because Christ made us righteous. He gives you life and faith to believe Christ because Christ really made his people righteous. And so he imputes what Christ made us. And he doesn't pretend you're righteous. We are really the righteousness of God in Christ.

And he charges you with what Christ has made you. Oh, that's good news, brethren. So every citizen of God's city shall be all righteous in and by the Lord Jesus, all righteous. Now, you know what that'll do for us when we know that? This is what happens in each of us who believe.

It makes us stop competing with one another. That's what false works religion's all about, competing with each other, trying to be more holy, more righteous than the next person. It makes you stop exalting yourselves over another. And most of that is by condemning another or pointing out another sin. It makes you stop doing that. because we all have the exact same righteousness in Christ. It makes you stop competing for a better reward than another.

That's a mercenary spirit. That's a mercenary spirit. You think there's gonna be a rich side of heaven and a poor side of heaven? Because the believers earned that? That's works religion. That's not so. He told Abraham, I am your reward, Abraham. I'm your reward.

See, all this fleshly competing and self-exalting, that's ended when we know we have the same righteousness, our Lord Jesus Christ. In ourselves, we're equally worms. In Christ, we're equally righteous. All right, secondly, God's made us his heirs. He says in verse 21, they shall inherit the land forever.

Romans 8.17 says, if we're children, then we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.

Now, God has graciously chosen his people and he has written his will and testament. Just like a man writes his last will and testament. That's what this book is. That's what this gospel is. We came today to hear the reading of God's will, declaring who gets the inheritance and why. That's what we came to hear. Go with me to Hebrews 9. Here's why his people received this inheritance. Here's why. Hebrews 9, verse 15.

For this cause, Hebrews 9.15, for this cause Christ is the mediator of the New Testament. That's what this New Testament is. It's God's will of who he's gonna give his inheritance to. He's the mediator of it that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the First Testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is a force after men are dead. Otherwise, it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood.

For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, He took the blood of calves and of goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, this is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover, he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission. Now here's what all that pictured. It was necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens, all those things pictured heavenly things. It was necessary they should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

Christ is not entered into the holy place made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should offer himself often as the high priest entered into the holy place every year with the blood of others, For then must he have suffered since the foundation of the world, but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

And as it is appointed to men once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, he put away our sin and settled our judgment. We had one judgment to face, we already faced it in Christ. So those that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

Whenever God calls his child and he gives you faith to trust Christ, the blood of Christ purges our conscience. We thought all these works we were doing would count. God purges our conscience and shows us they were all dead works. Nothing made you righteous or holy. And he shows you how Christ has done all the works. By his obedience, he made us righteous.

And he brings you to trust Christ and he says, this is the blood of my testament that I have enjoined to you. It's finished. You remember when Christ gave the wine to picture this blood, he said, this is the new testament written in my blood. And God said, I've joined it to you. It's unbreakable. It can't be changed.

It's written in the blood of Christ so that all God's promises are yes and amen in Christ. And he says, this is why you shall have the inheritance. The one that is the testator took your place on Calvary's cross and died the death you owed to justice. And therefore, by his blood, now you are a joint heir with Christ an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ. That's the best news you ever hear. That's the best news you ever hear.

He said, how shall I put thee among the children? How shall I give thee a pleasant land, a goodly inheritance of the hosts of nations? He said, you shall call me my father and thou shall not turn away from me. And when he purges that conscience and gives you faith in Christ by his spirit, He makes you to know you're my son, I'm your father, and I've given you this inheritance. It's yours. And he keeps you from ever turning away from him again. You're gonna continue saying, my father, my father. So it's all by Christ's blood, brethren. We're all righteous by Christ, and the inheritance is by Christ.

Now here's what I want you to get. The inheritance we're looking for, God's children are not looking for streets of gold and mansions in heaven and all the things that the flesh lusts after. What we're looking for is God, Christ our Lord. When it says you are the heir of God, it literally means God is our inheritance. Christ is our inheritance.

Listen to this now. I'm not making this up. This is scripture. In Numbers 18, 20, when the Lord made Aaron the priest, Christ by his blood has made us priests unto God. And when he made Aaron the priest, he said, thou shalt have no inheritance in their land, neither shalt thou have any part among them. I am thy part and thine inheritance among the children of Israel. And that's what he's taught us. I'm your inheritance. He said to Abraham, Abraham, I am your exceeding great reward. I'm your exceeding great inheritance.

You can't get better. And God's people don't want anything else. All right, thirdly, this is all true because we are the work of God's hands. He did it all. Verse 21, Isaiah 60, 21, thy people also shall be all righteous, they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands. Now preeminently, the branch of God's planting is his son, Christ Jesus. The scripture tells us Jeremiah 33, 15, in those days and at that time, Well, I caused the branch of righteousness to grow up unto David, and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. That's Christ.

Behold, I will bring forth my servant the branch, God said. God cut down the tree to the roots. Here was the nation of Israel and the tribe of Judah particularly, and God cut them down to the root. He said, I'm done with the pitcher. I'm done with the type. He cut it down. He said, I'm done with it.

Out of that stump came a tender plant, a root out of a dry ground, and that branch, that vine is the Lord Jesus. We have it right here at the front of the church building, right by the fence right here, between this big tree and the fence. If you'll look, there's a stump right there, and out of the middle of that stump is growing a branch. And that branch pictures Christ. He came through the tribe of Judah, he's the offspring of David, he's the root out of the dry ground, and so he's divine.

And then when he calls you to faith in him, he plants you, he plants his child. He does the calling, he does the planting, and to show us it's not of us, we saw he calls all kinds of sinners. One thing that ought to teach us is, It's not anything about us that made him choose his people, and it's not anything about us that makes us merit any of this. There's all kinds of sinners, and God says of all of them that he saves, there's none righteous. So it wasn't anything in, no matter how you differed, it wasn't your difference that made you merit anything with God. It was all of his grace.

Look back up there at verse 13. The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, Lebanon's glory was they had these giant cedar trees, and that's what God's using as a picture of his people. Why is he using a cedar and all these different trees? Because one, all his people come from being different kinds of sinners. Male, female, rich, poor, Jew, Gentile, bond-free, educated, uneducated. From the pauper to the king, he's got all kinds of people. But another reason is this, all these trees are evergreen trees. And he made his people evergreen, always alive by Christ the life.

Look here, Isaiah 60 verse 13, the glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree and the pine tree and the box together to beautify the place of my sanctuary and I will make the place of my feet glorious. He's walking in the church, he's planting. And he said, and I make the place of my feet glorious. And in verse 21, he says that you're the branch of my planting, you're the work of my hands. Faith, spiritual life, faith, repentance, perseverance in faith, suffering for Christ's sake, being merciful to brethren, forgiving brethren their offenses, loving one another, Our perfect righteousness before God, our perfect holiness in God's presence, everything about us is the work of Christ's hand, everything, everything.

Look at Ephesians 2.8, I want you to see this. Faith, repentance, Paul often calls things works when he doesn't mean it's a work, but he's doing it as sort of a turn of the phrase, A play on words, you know how he said in the Hebrew letter, it says, if you wanna work labor to enter into his rest, you know, that's a play on words. I think that's what he's doing right here.

In verse eight, he says, by grace, Ephesians 2.8, by grace are you saved through faith, and that's not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.

Not of works, lest any man should boast, for we are his workmanship. created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we shall walk in them. Wherefore, remember, in time past, being Gentiles in the flesh, called uncircumcision by the Jews, called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, at that time you were without Christ, you were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, you were strangers from the covenants of promise, you had no hope, you were without God in the world, but now, In Christ Jesus, you who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." Every good work he brings his people to do, Christ has already worked it. He's your perfection of it, and he already ordained that you should walk in it. He's going to bring you to walk in it, and you're going to do it. But here's the thing about good works with God's people. We don't notice most of the things that are good works. When you're looking at it and you think it's a good work, you just ruined it. By thinking that, oh, I've done a good thing, you just ruined it. The good works God's people do, we don't notice.

And I'll tell you how I know that, because he said when he gathers the sheep on the right and the goats on the left, he said he'll say to the sheep, come inherit the land prepared for you before the foundation of the world, and he said, I was hungry, you fed me. I was thirsty, you gave me drink. I was sick, you visited me, all those things.

And their answer is, Lord, when do we ever do that? And he said, as much as you did it to these, the least of my brethren, you have done it to me. But the goats, you know what their answer was? When did we not do that? They think everything they did was good. When did we not do that?

There's a different spirit. God's people, we see our sins We're not looking at good things and saying, oh, look how good I am. That's what the self-righteous legalist is doing. God owes me a better reward. Don't tell me it's just Christ. I want to be on the rich side of heaven. That is a sinful, fleshly, lustful desire is all that is. I want Christ and he's worked everything to make me worthy of that inheritance. It's him, not me.

And that's what God's people know. All right, lastly, all this brings us to the end purpose for which God saves after this manner. He chose whom he would, and he trusted us to Christ, and Christ did all the work, and when he calls us, here's what all his people do. It's this reason right here that he saves this way. Verse 21, that I may be glorified. And we just saw in Ephesians 2, if there's anything you do, you're gonna boast. You're gonna glorify yourself that you did it.

Have you ever done anything good and you didn't have this thought that came into your heart that you hate wherein you considered it good? Have you ever done something that nobody knew about and didn't have a little bit of nagging thing in you hoping somebody finds out about it.

It's always with us. But if we did anything, you know, I hear preachers preaching saying that when it comes to holiness now, that's partly of the Lord and that's partly of you. It's synergistic. It's partly by his work, partly by your work. If that's so, God don't get all the glory. You're deserving of some glory, if that's true. That's not true.

Everything in salvation is of the Lord. Everything. And his people are gonna glory only in the Lord. That's why he said, of God are you in Christ, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that as it is written, he that glorieth Let him glory in the Lord. That's what God's, that's why he saves this way. All right, let's pray, brethren. Father, we thank you for your word. Lord, thank you for this free salvation in Christ by Christ.

What blessed people your people are to have all these sure and certain mercies that you've given us freely by your grace. Lord, we praise you and we give you the glory. We wish we could praise you and glorify you without any sin mixed with it. And one day, Lord, by your grace, we shall. Thank you for righteousness. Thank you for this inheritance. Lord, thank you that you have made us your workmanship. Lord, we praise you and glory only in thee. In Christ's name, amen.

Thy People Shall

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Thy People Shall

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