You know a good song leader who
doesn't just come in here and flip open some pages and choose
some songs to sing, but spend some time preparing and picking
them out. A man who can sing as well is
worth his weight in gold. Sean, I thank you. That song
service is special. It prepared my heart to preach,
I hope, and I hope it prepared your heart to worship. If you
would, open your Bibles with me to 2 Timothy chapter 1. This
will serve as our text this evening. I had started working on a message
from Genesis on Joseph, and I decided to hold that back till Sunday. I'll bring it Sunday and preach
that message in conjunction with the Lord's table on Sunday. So
tonight, we'll look here at a passage in 2 Timothy. Let's begin reading
in verse one. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
by the will of God, according to the promise of life, which
is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my dearly beloved son, grace,
mercy, and peace from God the Father and from Christ Jesus,
our Lord. I thank God, whom I serve from
my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing, I have
remembrance of thee. in my prayers night and day. Greatly desired
to see thee, be mindful of thy tears that I may be filled with
joy. When I call to remembrance, the unfamed faith is in thee,
which dwelt first in thy grandmother, Lois, and thy mother, Eunice,
and I am persuaded that in thee also. Wherefore, I put thee in
remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in
thee by the putting on of my hands. For God has not given
us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound
mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed
of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but be
thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God who has saved us and called us with an holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to his own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began. but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior,
Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought life and
immortality to light through the gospel, whereunto I'm appointed
a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles, for
the which cause I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I'm
not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded
that he's able to keep that which I have committed unto him against
that day. Now hold fast the form of sound words, which thou have
heard of me in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. We'll
end our reading there. Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy, reverent, is thy matchless name. And Lord, we are so thankful
that sinful men and women such as we are can come before your
throne of grace, crying, Abba, Father. What a blessing to be
able to call the God of heaven and earth our Father. Lord, how
we thank you for your love for sinners, that you would choose
to save sinners and to adopt them into thy family, make them
sons and daughters of the King. And that you would tell us to,
at all time, at any time, to come boldly, confidently in Christ
before your throne of grace, seeking mercy and grace to help
in time of need. Father, how we thank you. And Father, how I beg of thee
that you would bless us in this hour as we look into your word. Father, I pray you'd cause the
name of your son to be glorified and magnified as you'd cause
the gospel of your dear son that tells who he is, that tells what
he's like, tells what he's done, tells us why he's done it, where
he is now. Father, that you cause that message
to reach each heart here, to comfort, to encourage, to give
life, to save. Father, use this message to cause
us to look to Christ and Christ alone. Father, we thank you for this
place. How thankful we are that you've given us A place where
we can gather together out of the world, especially in the
middle of the week like we are right now, to have a refreshing
from your word. Father, we're thankful. Pray
that you preserve and protect this place for our sake and for
our children's sake, for the sake of our community. Father,
for thy great namesake, preserve this place as a place where the
gospel of your son is preached. And Father, we pray for your
people. that you brought in the time of trouble and trial. We
know that there are many. Your people, Father, you've been
so merciful, you've been so gracious, you've given us everything. And
Christ our Savior, yet in this flesh we are a poor, poor, poor,
needy people. Father, we pray you'd comfort
the hearts of your people, that you'd be pleased to heal, deliver. Father, that you'd work in a
mighty way, we pray. And Father, all these things
we ask in that name which is above every name. It's for His
sake, His glory we pray. Amen. I'll tell you where this message
started working in my mind and my heart a few weeks ago. I was
talking to one of my friends, my dear friends, about the gospel.
We talked about the gospel. We talked about this passage
here. And this is what us two great
theologians concluded. that any message that does not
fit this form, this pattern that Paul lays out here, the pattern
of the gospel, any message that doesn't fit in that form, it's
like you make, or you've done it, made those forms for cement
and poured cement in there. Well, anything that doesn't fit
in that form is not the gospel. And we took that from verse 13
here in 2 Timothy chapter 1. Hold fast to form, this form,
this pattern, of sound words, which thou hast heard of me in
faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. Any man preaching the
gospel, his message will always fit into this form, this pattern
that the apostle preached. And I want us to look at that
message for a few minutes this evening. I titled the message,
The Testimony of the Lord. Paul says in verse eight, be
not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor
of me his prisoner, Be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel
according to the power of God. A lot of people think that this
gives us some insight to Timothy's personality. He was a somewhat
timid man, maybe. And Paul tells him, now don't
be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. And the testimony of
the Lord is the gospel. That's why I read that passage
there in John, where John the Baptist talked about the testimony
of the Lord. He's declaring himself and he
said anybody who believes that has eternal life. Anybody who
doesn't believe that is condemned. The testimony of the Lord is
the gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ came in
the flesh and he gave testimony to how God saves sinners. Now
Paul tells Timothy, don't be ashamed of that gospel. Our gospel
is the witness of Christ himself. You think of that. The gospel
is a testimony that tells us who Christ is and how he saved
sinners, and it's his own personal testimony. It's like he's testifying
in court. It's his testimony to us. This
is the gospel. The testimony of our Lord tells
us who Christ is. It's about him. It tells us about
his person. It doesn't talk about our righteousness.
It talks about his righteousness. It talks about how he successfully
suffered for sin. the death which he should accomplish
at Jerusalem. The testimony of our Lord tells
about his intercession for his people, that he ever lives making
intercession for us by pleading his sacrifice. It tells of his
return. One day he's coming again to
gather his people to himself. It tells about his eternal kingship. Now that is a glorious testimony,
isn't it? And every bit of it's about Christ. That's what makes
it, so glorious and so wonderful. That's why there's nothing to
be ashamed of here, because it's all about Christ. The testimony
of our Lord is the gospel of peace. The gospel tells sinners
like you and me how we can have peace with God. That's glorious,
there's nothing to be ashamed of there. And I understand why
Paul is telling Timothy this, it's because the natural man
hates the gospel of Christ. They hate it so much they put
Paul in prison. Paul's writing this letter to
Timothy from prison for no other reason than he preached the gospel,
that he just repeated this testimony of the Lord. Don't let man's
hatred of the gospel make you ashamed of publicly saying that
you believe it. Whatever it is the natural man
hates, pretty good idea. We ought to start loving it.
Just pretty good. That's pretty good rule of thumb.
How could we ever be ashamed of the Savior who gave Himself
for us to die in our place so that we could live? No, we can't
be ashamed of that message. See, this gospel, this testimony
of the Lord, it's the only way we can know Christ. And this
message, the message of the gospel, the testimony of our Lord, it's
the one and only message God uses to save His people. It's
the only message that God uses to reveal Christ. Now this is
just kind of simple logic. If you would know Christ, somebody's
got to preach him. You can't know Christ by somebody
preaching something else. You got to know Christ. Somebody's
got a preaching. And I'll tell you why this is
so important to hear and believe the testimony of our Lord because
the one and only way we'll have eternal life is to know Christ. is to know him. Now, don't you
reckon that the best way for you and me to know Christ is
to hear his own testimony? I believe that's the best way
to come to know him. And that's why I want to preach
tonight. Now, what is the testimony of
our Lord? It's so important that we hear it and we believe it.
Well, what is it? What does this mean, the testimony of the Lord?
Well, it's described in our text. First, the testimony of our Lord.
His salvation is eternal. Verse nine, Paul says, be not
thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of
me as prisoner, but be partaker of the afflictions of the gospel
according to the power of God who hath saved us and called
us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according
to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ
Jesus before the world began. Now here's the testimony of our
Lord. Who hath saved us. Who hath saved us. Now that's
past tense. Not who will save us. Not who
will save us if we do something right. Who hath already saved
us. That's past tense. Well how far
past tense is it? Is it past tense to when I made
a decision? You gotta go further back than
that. You gotta go all the way back into eternity before creation.
Paul says this was given us in Christ Jesus, when? Before the
world began. Before anything was created. Now, sounds like Paul's making
it sound like that God's elect have always been justified. Well, it sounds that way because
it's true. God's elect have always been justified. That's the doctrine
of eternal justification and the mind and purpose of God.
This thing of redemption, justification, sanctification, it happened before
God ever created anything. See, it was God's purpose to
save His people from their sin, to justify them, make them without
sin by the doing and dying of His Son. Now that's God's purpose.
Now Charlie, God's purpose is gonna come to pass. You know
how I know that? Because God's God, that's how
I know that. So God's purpose is just as sure as a past act
of God. God cannot change. So if he,
in his mind, he justified his people in the sacrifice of his
son, they've always been justified. God can't look at somebody who's
unjustified now and justified later. No, they've always been
justified. They've been justified in the
lamb slain from the foundation of the world. See, salvation
is eternal. I'd love to say that. I love
to think about that. If salvation is eternal, Old
Frank can't mess it up. And I would if I could. So I
love to hear that salvation is eternal. And if you think about
it for two seconds, salvation has to be eternal, doesn't it?
Because God's eternal. Who does Paul say did the saving
here? God. He hath saved us. God saved us. We're not saved if we come to
the right knowledge of the five points of Calvinism. We're not
saved if we live the right moral life. We're not saved if we make
a decision for Jesus. We're not saved if we walk an
aisle and are baptized. He saved us. And he did it all
by himself. See, salvation is something that's
already been done by God. And here's the evidence of it.
God created Adam, put him in a perfect garden, and Adam sinned. Now when Adam sinned, he sinned
against God. He sinned in open rebellion against
God. Adam didn't make a mistake. Adam sinned in open rebellion
against God to do exactly what he was doing. Why didn't God
destroy the whole human race at that time? Why didn't he just
wipe out Adam and start over again with somebody else? It's
because there is a people who are in Adam. A people who would
descend someday from Adam who have already been justified in
Christ. They were justified long before
Adam fell. That's why God didn't destroy
Adam. It was impossible for those people to be destroyed. Impossible. They must be born. They must
hear the gospel. They must be given faith in Christ
because that's God's purpose. He couldn't destroy the first
man because all of God's elect are going to come from him. They're
already justified. See, before there was a sinner,
there was a savior who had saved his people from their sins. This
is the testimony of the Lord. Salvation's eternal. Salvation's
eternal. Second, the testimony of the
Lord is this, that God is sovereign in salvation. Paul says in verse
nine, who has saved Us. Us. Now God saved a people. God chose a people to save in
divine election. And many, many times in scripture,
they're called us. Us. They're the us. All that
the father gave the son to save. And if you look back in Ephesians
chapter one, here's a real good example of that, that the us,
that's God's elect. He has saved us. Ephesians 1
verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Now he hasn't blessed
everybody with those spiritual blessings, has he? He's talking
about somebody in specific here, it's us. He blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. According as
he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that
we, should be holy and without blame before him in love, having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ himself,
according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of
the glory of his grace, when he hath made us accepted in the
beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness
of sin, according to the riches of his grace, when he hath abounded
toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the
mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he
hath purposed in himself. Now the us and the we there,
you know who that is? That's God's elect, the ones
that he chose to save. And he didn't choose them because
they were gonna do something good. Paul makes it obvious,
so plain he said it's according to his good pleasure, according
to the pleasure of his will. God did it, chose a people just
because he would. It's all because of God. I'll tell you the two examples
as I thought about this this week that stood out to me in
scripture are Jacob and Esau and Moses and Pharaoh. Now what
made the difference between those men? Jacob and Esau. God chose one and passed the
other by. He loved one, hate the other. What's the difference
between Moses and Pharaoh? God's purpose. God raised one
up to be a vessel of mercy and he used the other to be a vessel
of wrath. To get glory to himself when he destroyed him. The difference
is God's choosing. That's the difference. God chose
a people to save and God saved those people by his divine power. By power that the almighty God
only he has. He used that power to put the
sin of his people away. I tell you it's a good thing.
Because if salvation were left up to you and me, none of us
would be saved. Because we're powerless. We're
spiritually powerless. We're dead. That means we can't
do anything good spiritually. But God in his sovereign power
did for us what we could never do for ourselves. He saved us. He saved a specific people and
every last one of them that can be glorified. All right, number
three, the testimony of the Lord is this, the salvation that God
purposed in eternity, he accomplished in time. Verse 10, but is now
made manifest by the appearing of our savior, Jesus Christ,
who hath abolished death and has brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel. Paul says, now this is made manifest
and it's made manifest, it's made obvious, it's made visible.
by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ. See, God's purpose
never did change. God's purpose was always to save
a people in his son. But that purpose was hidden in
the Old Testament types and pictures and shadows of the Old Testament.
It was always God's purpose to save his people by the obedience
of Christ, not theirs. It was always his purpose to
put away the sin of his people by the sacrifice of his son,
not the sacrifice of some animal. That was always God's purpose,
but we couldn't see it. It wasn't made plain, was it?
Because it was hidden in the types and pictures. God's purpose
of salvation became crystal clear when Christ came. And when Christ
came, we say, Oh, now I see. That's what our Lord did for
his disciples after his resurrection. He opened their understanding
that they might understand the scriptures. And the only scriptures
in existence at that time were the Old Testament scriptures.
He showed them how the Moses and the law and the prophets
and David, they all wrote of him. Now they understand. The only way we can see that
is by seeing Christ, seeing his perfect obedience under the law,
seeing his death as a sacrifice for our sins, seeing his resurrection,
seeing his glorification, When we see that, when we see Christ,
now I see. Now that Christ has come, it's
obvious to me. Righteousness doesn't come by
my obedience to the law. It's his. He obeyed the law. Now that Christ has come, it's
obvious. Duh, I should have always known
this. Sin's not put away by the blood of animals and animal sacrifices. It's put away by the precious
blood of Christ. Now I see. Now it's obvious to
me that rest is not found in a Sabbath day. Rest is found
in Christ my Sabbath. He's my rest. Now I see when
Christ came, he made everything obvious. There's death in Adam
and there's life in him. That's obvious to you if you
see him. And when Christ came, he undid for his people everything
Adam did to him. only better. See, Adam made his
people guilty. Christ made his people not guilty.
He made them righteous, and they can never make themselves guilty
again. Never. Adam brought death on
all men. Christ came, he gave his people
eternal life. If it's eternal, it can't be
lost. If something has eternal life, it's never gonna die. See,
what Christ did for his people, way better than what Adam did,
Christ destroyed death by destroying the sin of his people. It's sin
that causes death. When sin's gone, there can't
be more death. That's how Christ put away death for his people.
The father made his son sin for his people. Christ took the sin
of his people and he made it his. He became guilty of it. And he put all of that sin away
by his sacrifice on the tree. He died for that sin. and his
precious blood removed that sin forever. It made it to not exist.
So that the father says, I don't see it. Now, Bob, if the father
doesn't see it, it's not there. That's how effectual the blood
of Christ is. Christ made it so his people
can never die because he took their sin away. Now, whoever
it is that Christ died for, they have eternal life. And that's
obvious to us. If we see Christ, the death of
Christ made God's justice work for his people instead of against
them. You know, we're all afraid of
God's justice against our sin. We know what we deserve. But
when Christ died as a substitute for his people, God's justice
was satisfied. God said, the father said, it's
enough. Justice is satisfied. Well, now that justice is satisfied
because of the death of Christ, now God's justice demands God's
elect live. It demands it. They must live
because they already died in Christ our substitute. And the
only thing the death of our bodies is going to do is usher us from
here, this world of sin, this body of sin, this world that's
polluted with sin, to take us to be in the presence of our
Savior eternally. Now that's obvious to you if
you see Christ. It's all made obvious in the
end. All right, number four. Testimony of the Lord is this,
that God's salvation is applied to the hearts of his people by
preaching, the preaching of the gospel. Verse 11 in our text
says, where into I'm appointed a preacher and an apostle and
a teacher of the Gentiles. Now Paul says God saved us and
he called us The Father chose a people to save. The Son came
and He died for those people. He lived and He died for those
people to redeem them from their sin. Well then God the Holy Spirit
comes and He calls those people to Christ through the preaching
of the gospel. The way God lets His people in
on what He's already done for them is the preaching of the
gospel. Now look at John chapter 17. is to know Christ. John 17, verse three. Our Lord
says, and this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the
only true God and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Life eternal
is to know God, is to know the Lord Jesus Christ. All right. How am I ever going to come to
know Christ? Not the Christ of my imagination, the true God.
The Lord Jesus Christ of the Bible. How am I ever gonna come
to know him? It's through the preaching of the gospel. Look
at Romans chapter 10. The only way we're ever gonna
come to know who Christ is and to know why it is I believe on
him is somebody's gotta preaching. Romans 10 verse 13. For whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then
shall they call on him in whom they not believed? And how shall
they believe in him of whom they not heard? If you never heard
somebody, you can't believe them, can you? And how shall they hear
without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sinned? As it's written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. Here's how we come to know Christ,
to believe on him. It's by hearing Christ preached.
Now that's just so obvious. The only way you're going to
come to love somebody is hearing about them. You got to get to
know them. The way we know who Christ is, is hearing his gospel
preached. Now, could God save his people without them ever
hearing the gospel? Could he just supernaturally without them
ever hearing the gospel without them ever hearing about the Bible,
without them ever opening the Bible, could God just put that
saving knowledge and faith in their heart and their head? Absolutely
he could. Sure he could. But he's not going
to do it. He's not going to do it. He's
going to reveal himself to his people through preaching. God
could, he could reveal himself to you When you're just sitting
there reading the scripture, maybe you're reading one of the
messages of the apostles, or you're reading some of these
Old Testament types and pictures, and you're reading the scripture,
God could reveal himself to you, but more than likely, he's not
gonna do it. Because more than likely, what's gonna happen when
you're reading the scripture, is you're gonna be just like
the Ethiopian eunuch, and you're gonna say, how can I understand
what's being said here, except some man guide me? And if you're
wondering, how am I gonna understand this except some man guide me?
God's gonna send you a preacher to guide you. And I tell you
where he'll guide you. He'll guide you to Christ. Look
at 1 Corinthians 1. He's gonna come and preach Christ
to you. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 21. For after that in the wisdom
of God, the world by its wisdom knew not God. So it pleased God
by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believed. For
the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom,
but we preach Christ crucified. Under the Jews, under the religious,
that's a stumbling block. Under the Greeks, under the wise
of the world, it's foolishness. But under them which are called,
under the us, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and
the wisdom of God. Now how are these people called?
How is Christ revealed to them? By the preaching of the gospel.
the preaching of Christ. And back in our text in verse
9, Paul says this call of the gospel, it's a holy calling. It's a call to holiness, to holiness
in Christ. The gospel is the declaration
that sinners are made holy in Christ. This is not a holy calling
telling you, no, you better start living holy. The gospel tells
you you're holy in Christ. It declares Him. It tells us
we're justified in Christ because he took our sin away. We're sanctified
in Christ because he gave us a new holy nature in the new
birth. The call of the gospel, it's
a holy call. It's a call away from self. It's
a call away from anything about self. It's a call away from anything
that we do and it's a call to trust Christ to be our all. Now
that's a holy calling. that trust Christ. And you know full well, no man
is sufficient for these things. I don't think about preaching
or read about preaching in the scriptures very long at all,
for I'm reminded of that. No man is sufficient for these
things. No man is sufficient for preaching these things. No
man can do it under his own steam. But you know what else? Nobody's
sufficient to hear and believe these things under their own
steam either. Now I covet your prayers as I study and prepare
and preach because I'm not sufficient. And I tell you what I do for
you, I pray for you too. Because I know this, no man's
sufficient to hear either. Unless God gives him ears to
hear, faith to believe. And you know, when we each understand
this, we all understand this, none of us are sufficient That'll
give us a pretty good reason to pray for one another, won't
it? Understanding none of us are sufficient. I just, I just am very thankful
to find out God's put it on the hearts of his people to pray
for one another. I think that's an effect of the gospel. It'd
be mighty good for us to pray about the preaching and hearing
of the gospel. Here in this place, in our town,
to our family, to our loved ones, to those that we care about,
because this is the testimony of the Lord. If God's going to
save us, it's going to be by the preaching of Christ. That's
his testimony. Here's the fifth thing. The testimony
of the Lord declares that salvation is by the will of God. He saved
us, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose
and grace. Now look at Romans chapter nine.
Salvation has to be by the will of somebody, doesn't it? Has
to be by somebody's will. Well, that someone's not man.
That someone is God. And Paul tells us this, Romans
nine, verse 15. For he said to Moses, I will
have mercy. See here, this is God's will.
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And I'll have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. So then it's not of him that
runneth, it's not of the man that willeth, it's not of him
that runneth, but it's of God that showeth mercy. For the scripture
saith unto Pharaoh, even for this same purpose, if I raise
thee up, that I might show my power in thee and that my name
might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath
he mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will, he hardeneth. Now, Salvation is by the will
of God. Whoever he wills to have mercy
on, he'll show mercy. And whoever he will, he hardens. That's God's will, that can't
make any difference. Like I said a little bit ago,
who made the difference between Moses and Pharaoh? God did. It's by the will of God. Now here's what these verses
mean to us here. I'll just apply them to us chickens
right here. This is what this means. You
and I can't decide to get saved. We can't do it. I don't want to be overly picky
about words and stuff, but I hear about someone saying, well, I
got saved and somebody congratulates. Why are you congratulating? What
did they do? Salvation is not by our will.
We can't decide to get saved. Man can't decide to let Jesus
into his heart. If I can decide to let Jesus
into my heart, I can decide to keep Him out too. Now what kind
of God is that if I can decide to keep Him out? I love what
Brother Fortner used to say, if God decides He's coming into
your heart, He's removing the door bar and bolt and He's coming
in. And He's going to rain when He gets there. That's fact. Man can't decide to accept Jesus
as our personal Savior. Man can't do any of that because
we're spiritually dead. To be spiritually dead means
this. We can't do anything spiritual. The fact that we can do something
physical, don't mistake that to think that means we can do
something spiritual, because we can't. Salvation's not by
the will of man. Man cannot run after God and
get God to save us because of our efforts and our good works.
Salvation can only come by the will of God Almighty. And what He wills is gonna happen. He'll bring it to pass. Now that's
good doctrine. That's a whole lot more than
good doctrine, isn't it? That's the comfort and hope of every
believer. Salvation is by God's will, not
mine. My will changes from minute to
minute. I was walking through the room
today and I had determined when I go through this room I'm going
to do this. and I got distracted and went this way, never did
what I was intended to do over here. That's my will. My will
can be thwarted because a fly flies across the room or something.
If it's God's will to save me, I can never be lost. Now that
is good doctrine. You can take that home with you,
can't you? Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that's exactly what
he did in heaven and earth and the seas and all deep places. You can't go to a place and escape
God's sovereign power. If he has determined to save
you, brother, you're gonna be saved. He's gonna bring you to
faith in Christ. And that's cause for such joy
and thanksgiving. God's will shall be done. All right, here's the sixth thing. The testimony of the Lord declares
this. The salvation is by the grace of God. Back in 2 Timothy
1, in verse 1, Paul says, according to the promise of life, which
is in Christ Jesus. And in verse 9, he says, this
salvation was given to us, given to us before the world began. It wasn't earned, it was given. Life wasn't earned because we
decided to do something good, it was promised. It was promised
to us, but we didn't do anything good or evil. Now that's what
grace is. Grace is God promising to give
us something even though we don't deserve it, and then Him giving
it to us freely. That's grace. Salvation is by
the sovereign, electing, redeeming, regenerating, keeping, abundant,
glorifying grace of God. From beginning to ending, it's
all of grace. And a sinner loves it that way.
I mean, you can't tell a sinner too often about God's grace,
can you? I mean, all through the scripture, just pick out
as many examples as you want, but here's a few. What other
explanation do you have for Noah? Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. It wasn't because he was any
better than anybody else. Noah was delivered from drowning in
that flood because he found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And
buddy, he needed it too. Because right when he got off
that ark, what'd he do? He got drunk and lay naked in
a tent. He needed grace. He wasn't destroyed when he's
laying naked in the tent for the same reason he wasn't destroyed
when the rain started falling. Grace. Grace. How else can you
describe Lott? I challenge you to find one good
decision Lott ever made in the account of his life. I can't
find one. The only way Lott could be saved
is by grace. Why wasn't Lot destroyed with
everybody else inside him? I mean, the angels came and told
him, we're going to destroy this city and Lot lingered. Why did
they just let him go? Grace. Lot wasn't destroyed when he
conceived children through an incestuous relationship with
his daughters. Grace is the only explanation.
Peter called Lot just Lot. Justified Lot. Now, the only
possible explanation for that is God's grace. There can't be any other explanation
for Saul of Tarsus. I mean, the biggest enemy of
the gospel on the face of the earth at that time. And God saved
him. It has to be by grace. What about
Peter? Peter had been with the Lord
all this time. Peter swore, I'm going to die with you. Denied
the Lord three times. Why did the Lord pray for him
instead of cast him out? He let Judas go. Why didn't he
let Peter go? Grace. It's grace. What about David? Having his
best friend killed because he committed adultery with his wife?
Why wouldn't the Lord destroy him? He brought such shame on
the name of the Lord. It's grace. I'll give you a better example
than all of these. You and me. Our nature is so vile. And we've
showed it in a worse way than all of them. We live in a time
when we have the completed word of God. And we've known some
of the best preachers to come across through this country in
the last 200 years. and heard him preach. Heard him
preach the gospel of Christ. And we still didn't believe.
Huh? Yet one day, God saved us anyway. And the only explanation is grace.
The only explanation. And that's the testimony of the
Lord. And any message that the gospel is going to fit into that
pattern is going to fit it exactly. Now you might wonder, Well, have
I really believed this testimony? Have I? Have I really believed
on Christ? Or is this just some kind of
mental agreement because this is just what I've always done?
Or have I really believed the testimony of Christ? Let me quickly
give you two things. If you believe the testimony
of our Lord, two things will be true. Number one, you will
be 100% committed to trusting Christ alone. Trust your soul
to Him. and Him alone, you're not trying to help Christ save
you, you're committed to Him. Verse 12, for the which cause
I also suffer these things, nevertheless I'm not ashamed, for I know whom
I have believed, and I'm persuaded that He's able to keep that which
I've committed unto Him against that day. If you know Christ,
you believe His testimony, you've committed your soul to Him. And
number two, if you believe this testimony of our Lord, You believe
on Christ and you can't be deceived into trusting anything else.
You can't be deceived into trusting a lie once you know Christ. If you know Christ, you believe
Him, you're hanging on to Him for all your worth. Verse 13,
hold fast the form of sound words which thou have heard of me in
faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. See, Paul begins where
he started. It's all in Christ, isn't it?
It's all in Christ, and that's the testimony of our Lord. I
pray God bless that to our hearts. Let's bow together. Our Father, how we thank you
for this testimony of our Lord, that you would speak, that you
would give us your word, the very word of God as the testimony
of who you are and how you save sinners. And Father, I beg of
you that you'd cause your word as it's been preached, to go
forth in the power of your spirit, to reach the heart of each one
here, to cause us to rest in Christ our Savior, cause us to
be so thankful to be found in him, in him alone. Father, use
this message for your glory, to reveal to us the glory of
your dear son. For it's in his precious name,
for his sake we pray, All right, Sean, come lead us in our closing
hammond.