But it's time. She's right on
it. If you would open your Bibles
with me to Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6. As you're
turning, let me give you an issue of prayer for us. Novi Sparks
is going to have the surgery on the 28th of this month. And
it sounds to me like a very involved, complicated surgery. She's got
a hiatal hernia that they've got to fix. Her stomach is in
the wrong place, so they're going to try to move it over to kind
of be where it's supposed to be. They may try to create some
sort of a band from her stomach to stop this constant nausea
and throwing up. And they also might kick in taking
out her gallbladder while they're in there. It sounds very complicated. They told her to plan on at least
a week recovery time in the hospital before she comes home. Let's
remember her in prayer and hope this can fix some of the difficulty
this young woman has been living with her whole life. I just,
I'm so prayerful that the Lord will use this to help her. All
right, Matthew chapter six, we'll begin our reading in verse five. And when thou prayest, thou shall
not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray, standing
in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that
they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have
their reward. But thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thy closet, and when thou shut thy door, pray to thy
father which is in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret
shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain
repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall
be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto
them, For your father knoweth what things ye have need of before
ye ask him. After this manner, therefore,
now you don't just memorize these words and say these words as
a prayer. After this manner, therefore, pray ye. Our father,
which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as
it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread
and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. and lead
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the
kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. For if ye forgive men their trespasses,
your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive
not men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your
trespasses. All right. Let's stand together
as Sean leads us in singing our call to worship. Remember, Lord, the blood and
sweat Of him who more than paid my debt. Remember Christ upon the tree
and now be merciful to me. Remember how that Jesus bled
in this morning descend. that curse for me, in His own
body on the tree. A perfect righteousness He wrought,
Then by His blood I pardon all, So that His righteousness might
be By grace imputed now to me. I plead the merits of the blood
of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The sinner's substitute is He. Almighty substitute for me. Okay, if you would now turn in your
hymnal to song number 275, I Belong to the King. I belong to the King, I'm a child
of His love, I shall dwell in His palace so fair. For He tells of its bliss in
yon heaven above, and His children its splendor shall share. I belong to the King, I'm a child
of His love, and He never forsaken His own. He will call me someday
to His palace above, I shall dwell by His glory in my throne. I belong to the King and He loves
me, I know, for His mercy and kindness so free. are unceasingly mine, wheresoever
I go, and my refuge unfailing is He. I'm a child of His love, and
He never forsaketh His own. He will call me someday to His
palace above. I shall dwell by His glorified
throne. I belong to the King, and His
promise is sure, That we all shall be gathered at last, In
His kingdom above, by life's water so pure, When this life
with its trials is past. I belong to the King, I'm a child
of His love, and He never forsaken His own. He will call me someday
to His palace above, I shall dwell by his glorified throne. All right, now let's open our Bibles to
Acts chapter four. Acts the fourth chapter, and
as you're turning, let me remind you that in the bulletin, two
weeks from today, we're gonna have a Sunday evening service
at six o'clock in the evening. Roland Browning is going to be
here to preach for us. After he preaches, we'll have
a little ice cream social in time to fellowship together.
I love Roland Browning. I love him. I love his preaching,
so clear and easy to understand. And I know that you all enjoy
getting to hear him and visit for a while. All right, Acts
chapter 4, we'll begin reading in verse 23. And being let go, they went to
their own company and reported all that the chief priests and
elders had said unto them. And when they heard that, they
lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord,
thou art God, which has made heaven and earth and the sea
and all that in them is, who by the mouth of thy servant David
has said, why did the heathen rage and the people imagine vain
things? The kings of the earth stood
up Rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against
his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou
hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles
and the people of Israel, were gathered together for to do whatsoever
thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And now, Lord,
behold their threatenings, and grant unto thy servants that
with all boldness they may speak thy word. by stretching forth
thine hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done
by the name of thy holy child, Jesus. We'll end our reading
there. Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, oh, how we thank
you that you are God alone. You sovereignly rule and reign
over all of your creation. And this comforts the hearts
of your people. We thank you and praise you that you sovereignly
rule and reign over all things. This is the comfort of our hearts
concerning the salvation of our souls. We can't do anything to
save ourselves or to keep ourselves saved, but if you willed it,
you'll bring it to pass and we can rest in thee. And father,
when we see all the events of this world, It's such a comfort
to our hearts to know these things are not running out of control,
but it's all according to your eternal will and purpose, that
all these events are simply you carrying out what you determined
before to be done, that you're ruling over it all. Such a comfort
to our hearts. Father, we praise you and thank
you that you are God over all. And oh, how we praise you for
your mercy and your grace to your people and our Lord Jesus
Christ, that you've enabled us to see your wisdom, how that
you can be both just and justifier through the person, through the
work, the offering, the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father,
how we thank you. Sinners can be saved no other
way. How we thank you that you have
made it so that we have no hope but Christ and Christ alone.
What a blessing to be able to to rest in Him. And Father, I
pray this morning that you would enable us to lift up and exalt
the name of Christ our Savior. That each of us would leave here
with the name of Christ on our hearts and on our lips. Enable us to leave here joying
in Christ our Savior. And Father, after all your blessings
to us, We know we're still a poor and a needy people. In this flesh,
we're nothing but a pile of dust. And Father, we pray for your
help. We pray for your help as we go
through our journey here below, that you'd be with your people,
that you'd lead us, that you'd guide us. Oh, that, Father, you'd
never leave us alone. Let us constantly have a sense
of your presence with us, your hand upon us, that you're with
us. And Father, we pray a special
blessing for your people that you've brought in the time of
trouble and trial, their sickness and heartache and their hurting. Father, we pray you'd be with
them. We pray a special blessing for young Novi, Father, that
you'd be with her in this upcoming surgery in a special way. that you'd use the doctors and
nurses to treat her and give her some help for all these symptoms
she's been suffering so long, that you might be pleased to
heal her. We hold her up to thee, Father. All these things we ask,
and we give thanks in that name which is above every name, the
name of Christ our Savior. Amen. Now, I've titled the lesson this
morning, or the message this morning, The God We Worship.
You remember what's been going on earlier in this chapter that
Peter and John have healed the lame man and sat by the gate,
beautiful. Instead of rejoicing about it,
they got arrested for it because they did it in the name of Jesus.
They've been threatened, don't use this name anymore. Don't
be preaching that name anymore. And boy, when they threatened
him and they asked him, By whose name, by whose power did you
do this? They preached Christ boldly, and you remember that
word boldly means clearly, so that nobody could mistake what
it was that they're saying, that salvation is in Christ and in
Christ alone. It's his power that healed this
man, and it's only by his power, by his sacrifice, any sinner
can be saved. Well, they couldn't say anything
against it, so they let him go. You know, they had to threaten
him one more time. Don't be preaching this name anymore, you know,
and they let him go. And I find it interesting that
immediately Peter and John went to the place where God's people
were gathered together. Verse 23 says, and being let
go, they went to their own company and reported all that the chief
priests and elders had said under them. Now I'm assuming that God's
people were meeting there together in public worship service. Maybe
we call it a prayer service. They're praying for all the things
that are going on. They're praying for Peter and
John. They're worried what might happen to them. And God's people
are there together in a worship service, in a prayer service.
And I know this for sure. They are worshiping, they're
praying to, This is a prayer, but it sure sounds like a message,
doesn't it? They're preaching and worshiping Christ the Savior,
the true and living God. I know they are. Now, I know
they did that 2,000 years ago, and I'm thankful. I'm thankful
that they had that opportunity. But what I wanna know is how
can you and I know that we're worshiping the true and living
God? Is there a way that I can know that we preach and that
we believe the same Christ that they're worshiping and trusting
in here in the early church? Well, there is, there is some
marks of the true and living God here, the marks of the God
that we preach, that we believe, that we worship. And the first
one is this, the God that we worship is sovereign. In verse
24 it says, and when they heard that, They lifted up their voice
to God. They immediately began praying. God's people are a praying people. Whenever you find a believer,
you're gonna find a person that prays. And you know why we pray? The only time that you truly
pray, the only time that you bring a matter before God and
you're really praying about it, is when it's a matter that you
know is out of your control. Everything's out of our control.
So we are to pray for everything, aren't we? And we bring these
matters to God because we know he's sovereign, because we know
whatever the matter is, he's sovereign over it. He's in control
of it and he can take care of the problem. I try my best to
quit praying and asking God, would you do this to solve this
problem? but instead pray, Lord, can you
do anything about this? I mean, we just hold up our empty
hand to thee. Lord, can you do anything? That's
praying to the Sovereign. I love that leper that came to
our Lord after he preached what we call the Sermon on the Mount,
who came and said, Lord, if you will, you can make me whole,
you can make me clean. That's praying to the Sovereign.
He knew he couldn't do anything to heal himself, but he prayed,
to the one who could because he's sovereign over all. I'm sure that, like I said earlier,
these people, they were praying. They'd been praying for Peter
and John. You think about the situation
that they're in here in the early church. Being put to death for
believing this gospel and preaching this Christ was a very real possibility. Just roughly two months ago,
They'd all watched the Lord Jesus be crucified. And I mean, such
a horrible, horrible scene. They may have seen, I'm sure
they did see other crucifixions, but this is the worst one they
ever saw. They put their master, their Lord, to death, and they
knew that if they believed him, if they publicly stood on this
and said, I believe him, I trust him, I'm one of his followers,
the very same thing could happen to them. So they prayed. They couldn't deliver themselves.
They're powerless to deliver themselves, but they know who
is able. They know who's sovereign over all these things. And you
can tell they know that he's sovereign over all these things
by what they pray. We'll get to those things in
a minute, but you can tell they know that their God is sovereign. He's able to deliver if he will. He's able to save if he will.
I know that as much as I know anything. And that's why we pray. That's why we pray. And I hope
I don't have to prove to anybody here that God is sovereign over
everything. I hope I don't have to prove
that to you. I mean, how can I prove it to you? How can you
prove that the sun shines? I mean, it just is. God's sovereign,
he just is. If he's God, he's got to be sovereign.
But I hope thinking about how our God is sovereign over everything
thrills your heart. I wanna read you a few scriptures.
We won't turn to them for time's sake. Just let me read them to
you. Psalm 103 verse 19. The Lord hath prepared his throne
in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all. Now if his kingdom
rules over everything, if he's ruling everything from his throne
in the heavens, what do we got to worry about? He's sovereign
over it. Psalm 115 verse three. Our God's
in the heavens, and he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. Whatsoever
it pleased him. That's what he's done. Psalm
135 verse six, whatsoever the Lord pleased. That's what he
did in heaven and the earth and the seas and all deep places. If it's pleased the Lord to make
you his people. If it's pleased the Lord to bruise
his son in your place, if it's pleased the Lord to choose you
unto salvation, to call you by his gospel, to keep you by his
grace, if it's gonna please the Lord to one day bring you into
his presence and glory, he's gonna do it, because he always
does what he pleases. Isn't that wonderful? His sovereignty,
it throws your heart. Nebuchadnezzar said in Daniel
4 verse 35, He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his
hand. Nobody even has the right to
ask him, what are you doing? He does according to his will. Our Lord told Pilate in John
19 verse 11, I mean, you get this, the picture of what it
looked like in Pilate's big fancy hall, you know, I'm sure it was
very ornate You know, big fancy looking place where pilot would
sit in judgment, you know, and here's this man tied up. He's
already been beaten and tortured all night and whipped on just
bloody, awful mess. Standing there just, you know,
in front of this man dressed to the nines. Who's in control
here? Our Lord told pilot, you could
have no power at all against me. except that we're giving
you from above. Don't get too full of yourself.
You got something you can do. The only reason you can do it
is God gave you the power to do it. It all comes from him. And
we can't take our next breath unless the Lord enables us to
do it. That's how dependent on the sovereign that we are. Paul
said in Romans 9 verse 18, repeating what the Lord told Moses, he
hath mercy on whom he will have mercy. and whom he will, he hearteneth. If the Lord is pleased to have
mercy on you, he will, and you can't escape it. His name, Paul
told Timothy in 1 Timothy 6, verse 15, is the only potentate,
the King of kings and the Lord of lords, that's his name, not
just what he does, that's his name, that's who he is, and that's
the God we worship and praise all through our journey here
below. And you know what? That'll never stop. You know
what the saints in heaven are saying right now? Revelation
19 verse six says they're singing hallelujah for the Lord God omnipotent
reigneth. They praise him on earth for
being king and they're doing it now perfectly. The Lord God
omnipotent reigneth. That's our God. You could look
up, I could have read you scriptures for the next 50 minutes about
all these verses of God's sovereignty, what it is he's pleased to do
and his sovereign power for his people. But from what we've just,
just that small sample that we've read, can't we conclude this?
Our God is sovereign over everything. And he's able to do anything
that he's pleased to do for his people. Well, then it's only
right that we praise him, that we worship him. That's the God
that we worship. Pray. We only pray to the sovereign
now, who can take care of things that's not in our control. Pray, and this is probably one
of the hardest things, leave it there. Leave it within. Pray and leave it there. But
let me also say this about prayer. Prayer is not a duty. of God's
people. Prayer is a blessing and the
privilege of God's children to be able to pray. You think about
what a blessing that is. Prayer is simply talking to our
Heavenly Father. Blessing isn't even a strong
enough word to describe what it is that a creature of clay
can talk to God Almighty. That's a blessing. That's a privilege. And prayer is important to us.
Not only did the Lord teach us to pray, he taught us how to
pray, didn't he? He taught us how to pray. He
said that he taught us the disciples' prayer. That's not the Lord's
prayer, that's the disciples' prayer. Our Father who art in
heaven. When I was playing basketball
in junior high and high school, After practice, where we spent
two hours trying to beat each other's heads out and playing
how we're going to beat the heads off the people that we're getting
ready to play next, we all came to the center circle there at
the basketball court and all got down on our knees and we
recited the Lord's Prayer. Somebody took turns, you know.
I don't think that ever helped us win a game. But after this
manner, pray. Don't just go through the motions.
Don't just do this publicly like the hypocrites do. This prayer
is talking to our Heavenly Father. And our Father's given His children
the blessing to pour out anything that's on our hearts to Him.
Now you think about that. Scripture tells us, don't be
shy. Whatever it is that's on your
heart, pray. You parents, what thing is it
that your child is going through and thinking about and worried
about and being obsessed with at this particular moment that
they can't come talk to you about? Well, how much more perfect our
Heavenly Father tells His children, pray about everything. Philippians
4 verse 6 says, be careful for nothing, but in everything, in
everything you're going through by prayer and supplication, With
thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. Pray. And I know that prayer often
can be a difficult thing. We think, that wasn't a good
prayer. You know, we pray and, you know,
that wasn't a good prayer. I just speak so poorly in prayer. Why would the Almighty ever hear
my prayer? I mean, this is, why would he
ever hear my prayer? Want me to tell you why? Because
scripture says, he careth for you. That's why he hears your
prayer. And you think, why would God
hear my petitions? The things that I ask for in
prayer. Why would God bother to hear my prayer? My prayer
is all asking for stuff and so little praising and thanking
God for everything he's done for me. All I keep doing is asking
him for stuff. Why would God ever hear, that's
such a poor prayer. And why would God hear my praise?
I always find things to ask him for, and I think, oh, I gotta
throw in some praise here. I gotta thank God for some things. My praise and my thanksgiving
is so lukewarm, so unworthy of God's glory. Why would he ever
hear me in prayer? Because he told us to pray. That's
why he told us to pray. Our Lord Jesus was a great man
of prayer. How many times would the disciples
find him praying? He was up all night praying.
They saw him pray and they pray and they ask him, Lord, teach
us to pray. He set the example and he told
us to pray. He'll hear the cries of his people. He'll hear the prayers of his
people as childish, and as poorly worded and coming
from a sinful heart as they are because our God is gracious and
his ear is not heavy that it cannot hear. Now you pray because
he's sovereign over everything. He's the only one we have to
pray to and he's gracious enough to hear the prayers of sinners.
Doesn't that make you want to worship him? That's so wonderful. That makes us want to worship
him. Then second, the God that we worship is the creator. Verse 24 says, when they heard
that, they lifted up their voice to God. They're praying with
one accord. And they said, Lord, thou art
God, which has made heaven and earth and the sea and all that
in them is. Now our God is the creator of
the world. Physically he's the creator of
the world and again. I hope I don't have to convince
you of that I mean the most obvious thing in this world is God created
the heavens and the earth this thing of Evolution is the craziest
thing that anybody could believe You don't have to make a leap
of faith or a leap of logic to see God created the heavens and
the earth but now you got to make a gigantic leap of logic
or To think that a tadpole became a human, ridiculous. Oh, but I have to prove that
to you. But what a wonderful thing to think about. Janet and
I both, we love to, you know, when we
read scripture to each other, we both like to read Genesis
1. What a glorious story that I
love to think about. There's God who dwells by himself
and the universe is complete and utter darkness. And God said,
let there be light. And there was light. God said,
let the dry land appear. And it appeared. God said, let
the grass appear. And it appeared, it didn't grow
slowly, the grass appeared. Let the trees appear and bring
forth after their kind. There's fruit trees and there's
plants and vegetables and they all just suddenly appeared. God
said, let the animals appear. Suddenly there's an empty field
and suddenly there's a bunch of cows standing in it. I mean,
they just appeared. I just love to think of the power
of that, the majesty, of God's power in doing it. And Adam fell,
and for 6,000 years, man has been making a mess of God's creation. And it's still beautiful, isn't
it? You can look at creation, you can still see the wisdom
of God. You can see something of his
wisdom. You can see something of his power that he created
all. You can see something of his
beauty and majesty that he created all this. I mean, it's just,
it's stunning. And it's marred by sin. Our God
has created this world and he gives life in it. Ain't it only
right that we worship him? It's only right. We get our life
and our breath from him and we're gonna have it as long as he lends
it to us. It's only right that we worship him. And our God is
the spiritual creator. Now this is what's so important
to us. Look over 2 Corinthians chapter four. God used the very same power
that he used to speak the worlds into creation to create life
in his people. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 5. For we preach not ourselves,
we preach Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves, we're just your
servants for Jesus' sake. For God, now here's why we preach
Christ Jesus the Lord. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in
earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not of us. God one day spoke and said, let
there be light. And I've told you so many times
on that first day of creation, that light is Christ. The sun
and the moon weren't created till the fourth day. God spoke
and said, let there be light, and there was light. Now all
this time later, here we sit, born in darkness, born fallen
in sin, Maybe our parents drag us to the worship service, and
it's the most boring thing you can possibly imagine being in.
Maybe you come because you got a boyfriend or a girlfriend,
and lots of people come, heard the gospel, because a cute girl
or handsome boy, but it's boring. Here we sit in our darkness, and somehow in a way we can't
explain, God says in our hearts, let there be light, and Christ
appears. Christ is in your heart. He gives
you life. And you worship him because you
can't do anything else. Because that's the nature that
God created in you. If you look at 1 Peter 1, I think
this is very important. You're not just going to be sitting
on your porch or doing something inconsequential when God speaks
and says, let there be light. He does it by the preaching.
of Christ, what Paul was talking about over there, the preaching
of the word. 1 Peter 1 verse 23, being born again. Now, how is it that you're born
again, spiritually born from above? Well, it's not a corruptible
seed. It's not like you're born the
first time in the flesh, but of incorruptible. It's by the
word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh
is his grass and all the glory of man is the flower of grass.
The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.
But the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word
which by the gospel is preached unto you. Now those verses ought
to tell us how important what it is we're doing right now.
We're preaching the word. Thus saith the Lord. Here's God's
word. Here's how this reveals Christ. Do you see him? Do you see him here? God uses
that preaching of his word to plant the seeds of life in the
hearts of his people. That word is being preached,
and while it's being preached, when God, who's sovereign, is
pleased to do it, he says, let there be light. And there's gonna
be, if he ever says that, there's gonna be light in your heart,
and you're gonna worship him. Now, if God's the only one who
can give us light and life, He's the only one, you cannot do it
on your own. Wouldn't it be a mighty good
idea to beg Him to give you life in life? It'd be a mighty good
idea. And I promise you this, if He gives you life, you will
worship Him. That's the God we worship, the
one who gives us life. He created life in us the same
way He created this universe. Then here's the third thing.
Look back in our text, Acts 4. We worship the God. that man
hates, but the flesh hates. Verse 25, they said, who by the
mouth of thy servant David, hath said, why did the heathen rage?
And the people imagined vain things. The kings of the earth
stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the
Lord and against his Christ. For of a truth, against thy holy
child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate,
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together
for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before
to be done. Now, every kind of person was
involved in the crucifixion of Christ, both the religious and
the heathen, the Jews and the Gentiles, the rich and the poor,
the black and the white, whoever they were, all kinds of people. You know, there are people from
all over the world that gathered together in Jerusalem that weekend,
because it's the weekend of the Passover. People from all over
the world were there. People from all over the world
were included in this plot to put the Lord Jesus Christ to
death. And you know why? Because all
flesh, I don't care where you find it, all flesh hates God. The nature of our flesh, fallen
flesh in Adam, hates God Almighty. Our flesh hates the Lord Jesus
Christ. And you think, I don't hate God.
Why? Well, I don't hate Jesus. I can't
believe you'd say that. Well, you don't hate the God
of your imagination. I'll grant you that. You don't hate the
Jesus that you've made up, this little pipsqueak Jesus that needs
you to do something for him in order for him to save you. You
don't hate him. I'll grant you that. But you hate the God of
this book. You hate the sovereign savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ that is described in this book. And I
can tell you why the flesh hates him. You know why the flesh hates
him and hates his gospel? Because the flesh hates not getting
any credit. Not just spiritually, but in
anything. The flesh hates not getting credit. I don't know how long ago it
was, but all the, all the kids were home. And you know how it
is when you got all the family home and you're cooking for everybody
and the kitchen gets, you know, gets to be a wreck. And everybody's
exhausted, you know. And the dishes kind of pile up. And Janet had been working like
crazy to keep us all fed and give everybody everything that
they wanted, you know. And she was so exhausted. And she was
upstairs, and I snuck in, and I loaded up the dishwasher and
washed all those dishes and got the kitchen all looking clean
for her, you know. And she came downstairs, and
you know what she said? She said, girls, thank you for
doing that for me. Thank you for getting all that
done. And I said, hey, they didn't do that. I could have let my
precious daughters just take that from their mommy. But I
mean, without thinking. I had to take credit. I mean,
I'm taking credit for that. The same thing applies to salvation,
doesn't it? I want some credit for that.
And let me tell you something about my daughters. They said,
oh, thank you, mommy. They want to take credit for
it. We want to take credit for what we ain't done do. Huh? Don't we? The flesh wants credit. And I tell you what's worse is
this, you know why? Because the flesh is so dead,
we think we can do something to make God happy with us. We
think we can do something to contribute to salvation. When
Christ, we hear the gospel preached that Christ could save us by
himself, we think we're good enough to help him out and contribute
something that's as good and holy and righteous as what Christ
accomplished for his people. Now that's dead. That is spiritually
dead flesh. And we say, well, now, you know,
I'm willing to have Christ, you know, save me, but let me do
a little bit. Let me help a little bit. If I can't help a little
bit before he saves me, let me at least help a little bit afterwards.
And we say that because I want some credit. Just give me a little
bit of credit anyway. And the gospel gives us no credit.
The gospel, this is why the flesh hates the gospel. It will give
us no credit whatsoever. The gospel offends man's dignity. You know, we, well, you know,
I mean, I'm not as bad as some people, I'm better than some
people, and the scripture tells us there's none good. No, not
one. Not even me. It offends my dignity. The gospel offends man's righteousness. You know, like I said, we're
so dead, we think we can do something holy, do something to make God
happy with us, I can do something here. I got something that's
better than somebody else. Let me contribute something to
my righteousness. And scripture tells us that our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. They are defiled by sin. And not only are they defiled
by sin, they're offensive to God. We think, oh, I can do this
and make God happy with me. That's the thing that offends
God the most. And that offends our righteousness, doesn't it?
The gospel offends man's wisdom. There's a lot of super smart
people sitting in this room. I mean, the things that you all
know and things that you can do, there's some super smart
people in this room. But I don't care how much intelligence
you got to figure out math and science and all these medicine,
all these different things that people know how to do. With that
intelligence, you can't figure out God. You can't figure out
how can God save a sinner and still be God. We can't figure
out anything about the nature of God. And you think, no, wait
a minute, I can figure out some things here. The world by wisdom
do not God. The gospel insults our intelligence.
The gospel offends man's nature and man's will. Now, wait a minute,
I can decide to receive Jesus or not. I can decide whether
I'm going to accept him or reject him. You better hope God doesn't
leave that decision up to you, because you know what scripture
says about us? You will not come unto me that you might have life.
In another place, the Lord said, you cannot come unto me, except
my father would have sent me drawing. Now that offends our
will, doesn't it? I want my will to have some of
this. If God's gonna save you, he's gonna have to give you new
will. Now you will come to Christ, you will bow to him, you will
worship him, you will be in submission to him, but only when God gives
you new will. We need God to give us what we don't have, a
new nature, a new will. The gospel offends man's self-reliance. Now, I can do some of this on
my own. No, you can't, because scripture says, without me, you
can do nothing. We can't do anything physically
or spiritually, not one blessed thing. Hath not the potter power
over the clay? That simple phrase offends our
self-reliance. Hath not the potter power over
the clay tells us all you and I are are a lump of clay. And
we're going to stay there as a dead lump of clay unless Almighty
God is pleased to make us a vessel of mercy. That offends man's
self-reliance. And if you would be saved, you don't know how badly I want
the Lord to save you. You don't know how badly, how
much I pray that the Lord will draw you to Christ. But if he's
going to do it, you're going to be saved by the one your nature
hates. And when he saves you, now your
flesh is still going to hate him, but he's going to give you
a new nature that doesn't hate him anymore. So here's a miracle
of both God's power and his grace in saving his people. When God
saves his people, we lovingly, willingly bow to him. because
we've been made willing in the day of the sovereign's power.
And now you got a new want-to, a want-to that wants to be found
bowing his feet. You got a new want-to that wants
to depend on him. You got a new want-to that doesn't
want to rely on yourself, that wants to rely on Christ alone.
That's God's power in giving you a nature that loves what
your flesh hates. Then here's the fourth thing.
We worship the God who always does his will in all things. Verse 26 says that the kings
of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together
against the Lord and against his Christ for of a truth against
thy holy child Jesus, whom thou has anointed both Herod and Pontius
Pilate with the Gentiles and all the people of Israel were
gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand. and thy counsel determined
before to be done." Whoever it is that's praying here, I can
tell they've been listening to Peter preach. Because ever since
Pentecost, Peter keeps repeating this in his messages. You put
the Lord of glory to death. You did it. The Gentiles and
the Jews, the heathen and the religious, you put the Lord Jesus
Christ to death. You did everything to him your
wicked heart could think up to do. You wanted to put him to
death so you're done with this Jesus and you never have to deal
with him again. You're never gonna have to deal with his gospel
again. And all you did was accomplish God's will. You didn't accomplish
your will. Your will was to snuff out the
name of Jesus of Nazareth. And when you put him to death,
That name is spread through all the world more than any other
name. You wanted to be done with this name, but this is the name
that's been published throughout all the world, the name that
saves sinners. You wanted to threaten people
and be done with this gospel, and the more you threatened,
the more the gospel spread and flourished and reached all God's
people. You didn't accomplish your will,
you accomplished God's will. What God determined before to
be done. Now what that is is the, is part
of what we call predestination. Before God created anything,
he predetermined what it was he was going to do after he created
the world. Whatever it is that's happening
today, when you go home today, at some point maybe you'll turn
on the news and whatever it is they tell you happened today,
God determined for that to happen on this day, at this time, before
he created anything. predestination. And the preeminent
example of that is the cross. Like I said, these, these people
tried to put, put the Lord to death and get rid of him. And
all they accomplished was the salvation of God's people. That's
going to happen through the sacrifice of his son. That's all they accomplished.
Look at Romans chapter eight. It was God's purpose before he
created anything that he predestinated a people. to be made just like
his son. Romans 8 verse 29. For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son. He didn't
just predestinate that they go to heaven. Predestination doesn't
have to do with the place. Predestination has to do with
the person. He predestinated those people to be conformed
to the image of his son, made just like his son, that he might
be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate,
them he also called. Whom he called, them he also
justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Now,
why did God call a people? Why did he justify a people?
Why is he gonna glorify people? Because he predestinated them
to be made just like his son. He predetermined that's what
he's gonna do with those people. And the way that the Lord accomplished
that will was the death of Christ on the cross. His death justified
his people. His death washed his people white
as snow. His blood paid the price for
all of the sin of all of his people that was against God.
It racked up such an enormous debt that only the blood of Christ
could put it away. The death of Christ enabled God
to be just, to not violate his character of holiness and justice,
and still show mercy to sinful men and women like us. That's
what the death of Christ accomplished. See, God didn't predestinate
some people to hell and some people to heaven. I know that's
what people say. Well, God predestinated he's gonna send some people to
hell. No, sir. You and I will go to hell just fine all on our
own. It's the natural result of sin. Sin against God, the natural
result of it is condemnation. But if a sinner would be saved,
God's got to predetermine he's gonna intervene in that sinner.
and make that sinner something he's not. Make them conformed
to the image of his son. And that's what he did for his
elect through the death, through the sacrifice of Christ. Now, how can you, how, how can
a human being say how wonderful that is? It's the most amazing thing I
can think of that God would take a filthy sinner and wash them
white as snow. A sinner that's so offensive
in God's sight, he'd wash them white as snow. Then he'd take
a guilty sinner and make that sinner not guilty by the suffering
of his son. To make that sinner who stands
shaking his fist in the face of the Almighty and said, I'll
not have this man reign over me. I'm going to do it your way,
not God's way. I know that's what that says,
but I'm not going to bow to it. and make that sinner the opposite
of what he was born. That's the most amazing thing
I've ever heard of. Both the power of that and the
graciousness of that. And if God ever reveals that
to you and me, we're gonna worship him. And then let me give you
this last. The savior that we worship is
the God man. Now, we've seen this in our study
in the tabernacle. You know, the two elements coming
together to make one, the wood and the gold making the ark and
the table and the boards of the tabernacle and so forth. Two
elements come together to make one thing. This is the God-man. Jesus of Nazareth is one man
with two natures. He's both God and man, 100% God
and 100% man. Twice in this prayer, They refer to him as the holy
child, the holy child Jesus. That's talking about a man. The
child Jesus was born of Mary's womb, her firstborn son, he's
the holy child. He's a man, he's a child, but
he's also holy, because he's God. Listen to what Isaiah said
about him. Isaiah 9 verse 6. For unto us
a child is born. This is a real man child. Unto
us a son is given. And the government, here's who
he is. The government should be upon his shoulder, and his
name should be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the
Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. This child who's born,
his name is Wonderful. Whose name is that? It's God's
name, isn't it? His name is the Counselor. Now who, that's God. He's the
mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace. He's the
God man. This child that's born is God
in the flesh. What a mystery. But that's the
only way a sinner could be saved is by the doing and dying of
the God man. He's got to be a man so he can
be our representative. But he's got to be God who's
holy and righteous and can make us righteous. He's got to be
God who has the grace and love and mercy and pity to save sinners
like you and me. He's got to be the God man. And
look what they say about it in verse 29. And now Lord, behold
their threatenings and grant unto thy servants that with all
boldness, they may speak thy word by stretching forth thine
hand to heal and that signs and wonders may be done by the name,
in the name of Thy holy child, Jesus. You know one of the things
believers want to see more than anything? We want to see the
glory of our Savior. And here they're being threatened
and you notice they didn't say, Lord, here they're threatening
us, would you kill them? Just let your fire fall on them
and kill them so they don't threaten us anymore. They didn't say that.
They didn't pray that the persecution would end. They prayed that in
this persecution, that the Lord might show the glory of his son. Let your servants speak boldly,
clearly, with no ambiguity, so that everybody understands who
we're preaching, what we're saying, that salvation is in Christ and
Christ alone. In the midst of this crazy world
that seems like it's gone off its rails, Lord, let your servants
preach boldly and bless your word. Save your people by the
preaching of this word. Do it, do it, do it for your
glory. Do it for your glory. If Lord
ever shows us that, if Lord ever does that for us, this is what
I promise you, we'll worship him. And I sure hope we have. I sure hope we have. Let's bow
together. Our Father, how we thank you
for your word. What a blessing that you have seen fit to give
us your Word, the Word of God Almighty, to men, that you've
preserved it for all these years, and Father, that you've given
it to us to open it and read it and study it and have it preached
to us, that you've given us some understanding that your Word
speaks of Christ our Savior. Father, I pray that you would
reveal Him to each heart here this morning through the preaching
of your Word. Father, that you'd bless it. Oh, how we pray you'd
Bless your word and show us your glory, your redemptive glory,
and saving your people by your grace, by your mercy that comes
to us through the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father,
bless us for Christ's sake, we pray. For it's in his name, for
his glory and his sake, we pray. Amen. All right, Sean. Okay, if you would, turn in your
hymnal to song number 228, and stand as we sing, My Faith Has
Found a Resting Place. My faith has found a resting
place, not in device nor creed, I trust the Ever-Living One,
His wounds for me shall flee. I need no other argument, I need
no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died,
and that He died for me. Enough for me that Jesus saves,
this ends my fear and doubt. A sinful soul, I come to Him,
He'll never cast me out. I need no other argument, I need
no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died,
and that He died for me. My heart is leaning on the Word,
the written Word of God. Salvation by my Savior's name,
salvation through His blood. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died
and that He died for me. My great physician heals the
sick, the lost he came to save. For me his precious blood he
shed, for me his life he gave. I need no other argument, I need
no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died
and that He died for me.