Well, good morning. I waited
a few minutes to make sure the rain wasn't keeping slum folks
up, so we'll start just a few minutes late. If you would open
your Bibles with me in Matthew chapter 26. We'll continue our
study here in Matthew this morning. Before we begin, let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, we thank you for
this opportunity that you've given us to meet together, to
worship your matchless name, to hear your gospel preached,
to hear of our Lord Jesus Christ, to sing your praises, to come
before you as a group and bow before your throne of grace,
come before you in prayer. Father, how thankful we are that
we can come accepted in our Lord Jesus Christ, that in him you
accept our prayer, hear our prayers, and you accept our worship and
our praise and our thanksgiving. Father, we're so thankful. I
pray that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ would be exalted
this morning in everything that we say and do, that his name
would be upheld and that your people might see him and believe
him, run to him and find our hope and peace and rest and comfort
in him. Father, we pray for those who
are in times of great, great trial and difficulty that the
flooding that's been in this area, People who are bereaved
and heartbroken need you especially, need your hand of healing and
comfort of their hearts. Father, we pray you'd meet their
need richly, according to the riches of your mercy and grace
and your wisdom in giving your people what's best. Father, we
ask again, as we prepare to look into your word, that you'd enable
us to see and hear the Lord Jesus Christ. For it's in his blessed
name we pray and give thanks. All right, I've titled our lesson
this morning, Saving, Keeping Grace. Our lesson, the text begins
in verse 31 of Matthew 26. Then saith Jesus unto them, and
you shall all be offended because of me this night, for it's written,
I will smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall
be scattered abroad, but after I'm risen again, I will go before
you into Galilee. Now the Lord is saying this to
the 12, but you know, 11 of these people he's speaking to here
are believers. They've been with him for more
than three years now. They've heard the Lord himself
preach the gospel. They've heard the Lord himself
declare himself and who he is and what he's come to do for
his people. And these are men who believe the Lord. They believe
him, they love him, they trust him. And the Lord tells those
men, Every one of you will be offended because me this night
The word offended means a stumbling block He tells them I'm gonna
be a stumbling block to you tonight because of what happens to me
And you know, that is a very scary thing to hear it if you
look at Romans chapter 9 Scripture speaks of Christ as being a stumbling
block to unbelievers a stumbling block that keeps them from believing
on Christ and They'll be damned because of it Look here, Romans
nine verse 30. What should we say then? That
the Gentiles, which follow not after righteousness, have attained
to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. But Israel,
which followed after the law of righteousness, they tried
to attain righteousness by their works of the law. They followed
after the law of righteousness. They've not attained to the law
of righteousness. Wherefore? Why? Because they sought it not
by faith. but as it were by the works of
the law, for they stumbled at that stumbling stone. As it's
written, behold, I lay in Zion, a stumbling stone and a rock
of offense and whosoever believeth on him should not be ashamed. But whosoever does not, you know
what Paul means is whoever does not believe on him will be damned. The Jews who saw the Lord Jesus
simply could not believe on him because they stumbled at who
he was. They stumbled at his lack of education. He didn't
go to their schools and their seminaries. They stumbled at
his upbringing. He was a poor man, poverty. He worked in a carpenter shop.
He probably had calluses and blisters on his hands. That's
just not their picture of who the Messiah would be. They stumbled.
They just couldn't believe this lowly man could be God in the
flesh. They couldn't believe it. He
just was not an impressive king like David or Solomon. They could
not believe and trust their souls to a man who died in such a shameful
way. They just couldn't do it. Look
over a few more pages. First Corinthians one. First Corinthians one verse 23,
but we preach Christ crucified under the Jews, a stumbling block
and under the Greeks foolishness. but then what you're called both
Jews and Greece, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of
God. But to the, to the Jew, the religious person, he's a
stumbling block to the, to the Greeks who wants something impressive,
you know, to the mind and impressive to the intellect. Christ is a
stumbling block. The simplicity of Christ is a
stumbling block to the Greek. The righteousness of Christ is
a stumbling block to the self righteous Jew. Now that's the
unbeliever, but the Lord tells these believers here the suffering
and shame that the Lord's getting ready to endure will be a shock
to them too. See, this suffering and this
shame of their master was not what they expected. These men
were still looking for glory. Now, they're gonna see God's
glory, but they're looking for it in the wrong way and in the
wrong place. When they saw their master being
crucified, when they saw him being so mistreated, and being
crucified, that's when God's glory was being manifested through
the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. Christ was being glorified
through a shameful death on the cross. That doesn't mean, oh,
you shouldn't trust him. This is his glory. This is the
reason you should trust him. He sacrificed himself for the
sin of his people. He wasn't being glorified sitting
on a earthly throne. He was glorified by suffering
and dying a cursed death as a substitute for his people. And that was
so shocking to them. They were also afraid, same thing's
gonna happen to me. Now, if you saw the Lord suffering
like that, you wouldn't want that to happen to you either.
I wouldn't either. They were afraid the same thing was gonna
happen to them. They weren't expecting this. So they stumbled
over what they weren't expecting. I mean, the same way, you know,
I don't know if you ever walked around the house at night, you
had to get up, get a drink of water, you had to go get something,
and the ottoman's been moved. And you're not expecting it.
It's always over here, but it's been moved over here. You know,
your wife goes moves the, the, uh, all the furniture around,
you know, got to change it up. This is what I hear. And you
stumble over what you're not expecting. I'm not expecting
the Ottoman to be there. I stumble over it. That's what
happened to the, to the disciples. They were not, they didn't see
this coming. They weren't expecting it. And they stumbled. They didn't
see it coming. And even when the Lord told him
it was going to happen, they were so confident. They contradicted
the Lord himself. Look here at verse 33. And Peter
answered and said unto him, though all men should be offended because
of thee, yet I will never be offended. Jesus saith unto him,
verily I say unto thee, that this night before the cock crow,
thou shalt deny me thrice. Peter said unto him, though I
should die with thee, yet I will not deny thee. Likewise also
said all the disciples. You know, Peter wasn't the only
one who told the Lord, now these guys will desert you. I can see
that. I can see why you say these fellows
will desert you, but not me. No, no, I won't do that. These fellows will, I'll die
with you. Now they'll all run away, but I'll die with you.
So said all the disciples. They all said the same thing
about themselves. And I don't think that they were lying when
they said they were willing to die with the Lord, but they weren't
willing to live with the shame. They weren't willing to live
with shame for his namesake. And they all did exactly what
the Lord said they do. They all deserted him. And you
know what? It had to be that way. It had
to be that way. They had to desert him because
when the Lord suffered for the sin of his people, he had to
do it alone. He had to. Peter couldn't die
with him because if Peter had died with him, you know what
you and me would say? Peter had something to do with this. Look
at Peter. He had something to do. The Lord had to die alone. because salvation does not come
from the blood of martyrs. Salvation can only come by the
blood of Christ and had we had to see him suffer and die alone. So we know that salvation is
in him and him alone. He's getting ready to suffer
unimaginable agony to put away the sin of his people. And it's
going to be a scary time for the disciples. They're going
to be offended. They're going to stumble. But now listen, before the Lord
goes to the cross, He gives them this precious, precious promise
of grace. And he gives us, those of us
who read this later, a precious promise of God's grace through
Christ's suffering for us. He gives us a promise of redeeming
grace because his blood has been shed for sin. He gives us a promise
of keeping grace that will preserve and keep his people. You know,
we talk about the disciples saying this to them, oh, I'll never
leave you. I'll never be offended by you. I'll die with you. and
then they left it. Well, you know, our sin, our
stumbling, our shame, really is worse than the disciples.
We have more light than they did. We're now looking back. We see what Christ went to do.
We see what he accomplished. Our sin and our stumbling really
is worse. It's sin against greater light.
It's stumbling in greater light. But the Savior promises, no matter
how weak our faith is, no matter how much his people stumble,
God's grace will save us. God's grace will keep us saved.
He will keep his people. This is what he's telling us.
God's grace is immutable. God's grace is unchanging. Immutable
is just a great big word for unchanging. God's purpose is
unchanging to redeem his people by his grace. by His grace that
comes from, is purchased by the blood of Christ. And the only
reason that that can happen, the only reason God's people
could be saved, the only reason they can be called out by the
preaching of the gospel, that they can hear the gospel and
actually believe on Christ and love Him whom they've never seen.
Believe on Him whom they've never seen with these eyes. The only
way one day they'll appear in Christ's likeness in glory, there's
just one reason for it, God's grace. That's the only reason. The only, they didn't deserve
any of it. Now if you look back in Zachariah chapter 13, Here's
the scripture that the Lord quotes here and tells us so clearly
that salvation is by God's grace from its beginning to its ending,
is saving, calling, keeping, glorifying grace. Zechariah chapter
13, verse one, in that day there should be a fountain opened to
the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for
sin and for uncleanness. Now the fountain opened for sin
was open when the body, we observed the Lord's table, Sunday or Wednesday
night, that blood, that fountain open for sin was open when his
body was broken. When he was beaten with that
cat of nine tails, when he had that crown of thorns thrust down
into his scalp, when he had those nails driven through his hands
and through his feet, when that Roman soldier thrust his spear
through the Lord's side, his body was broken. and out flowed
the fountain for sin, the cleansing fountain. There is a fountain
filled with blood. Are you going to sing that? You're
practicing it. There is a fountain filled with blood. The dying
thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day, didn't he? And there
may I, though vile as he, wash all my sin away. It's in this
fountain, open for sin, sin-atoning, sin-cleansing blood
of Christ. That's the fountain open for
sin. And look what the Lord says about his wounds, how this fountain
was open in verse six. And one shall say unto me, what
are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, those with
which I was wounded in the house of my friends. Now the Savior
was wounded in the house of his friends. God Almighty made Israel
his friend. He was their friend. He chose
the nation Israel. He chose them as a picture of
spiritual Israel. Now they were just a picture
of spiritual Israel. But you think of the advantages
that they had. They had the prophets. They had the word of God. They
had the tabernacle. They had the sacrifices. They
had the priesthood. They had the only way almighty
God could be worshipped. The only people worshipping God
on earth at that time was that little old nation Israel. God
befriended them, but when you just think of the advantages
that he gave them. And when the Savior came to earth
in the flesh, he came as a Jew out of the tribe of Judah. He
descended from David. He came into his own, John said.
And his own received him not. They rejected him and they killed
him. Because like I said a few minutes
ago, they stumbled. They stumbled at who he was and they refused
to believe on him. They refused to bow to him. And
so the thing they figured that was best to do is kill him, get
rid of him. We're not going to have to deal
with him anymore. And the Savior tells us now, that's how I got
these wounds in my hands. They nailed me to the curse tree.
I was bearing the curse of sin for my people. But now he tells
us why he got those wounds. I know it was the Jews and the
Romans who carried out the crucifixion. The Jews pushed the Romans to
do it. The Romans were the ones that
actually carried it out. The savior is getting ready to tell
us here. It was the father who put him to death. Look at verse
seven, a Waco sword against my shepherd and it gets the man
that is my fellow. Say if the Lord of hosts smite
the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered and I'll turn mine
hand upon the little ones. Now let me give you three points
that I see on saving grace in this verse. Number one, is this
the means of grace? The means of grace is God's justice
satisfied by the blood of Christ. Awake, O sword. That sword Zachariah
is speaking of is the sword of God's justice. Now that sword
has been sheathed. It's been sleeping ever since
Adam fell. When Adam fell, God didn't take
out his sword and wipe out the whole human race for one reason.
He already saw his people redeemed in the blood of Christ. the lamb
slain from the foundation of the earth. The father had already
purposed to save his people in Christ long before he ever created
Adam and long before Adam ever fell. Before there was a sinner,
there had to be a savior. God can't change, can he? God
couldn't say, oh, Adam fell and messed up my plan, so I'll change.
God can't change. He's immutable. He can't change.
So before there was a sinner, God already had a purpose, a
savior. And that's exactly what he did. He purposed salvation
in the blood of his son, by the sacrifice of his son. If he hadn't
purposed salvation in Christ, if he didn't already see God's
people washed in the blood of Christ, he'd have got out that
sword and wiped out the whole human race. He'd have killed
Adam and the whole human race would have been done. When Adam
fell, the sword of God's justice stayed sheathed. It stayed asleep. But now, now God purposed the
sacrifice, but now the savior saying the time has come for
that sacrifice to be carried out in time. God purposed it,
but it had to be carried out in time. And the savior saying
now is the time appointed of my father that I'd be sacrificed
for my people. So he tells the sword of justice
to awake and to extract justice from the sacrifice from the substitute. And the sacrifice is none other
than the son of God. He's God himself. God calls the
sacrifice. The man that is my fellow, the
man that is my fellow. This man is the God man. He calls
the lamb, my shepherd, my chef. He's the shepherd that I have
elected to be the savior of my people. The Lord Jesus Christ,
the son of God is the sacrifice and the one carrying out the
sacrifice. The one executing judgment is
the father. This matter of salvation, is
a transaction that happens between the father and the son. It's
between the father and the son. And the father awoke his sword,
and he turned his sword of justice against his own son. The father
is the one who plunged the sword of justice into the soul of his
son, into his soul. That's why scripture said he
made his soul an offering for sin. Now even though the father
loves the son, and we know from scripture the father loves the
son, Oh, he loves his son. Yet when Christ was made sin,
the father awoke his sword and turned that sword against his
son. When Christ was made sin, in order for a sinner to be saved,
their sin has to be taken away from them. Has to be taken all
of it away from them, given to the substitute, transferred to
the substitute. And he's the one, the substitute's
the one who has to put that sin away. The father was not playing
games. at Calvary. When Christ was made
sin, he plunged his sword of justice into the heart and soul
of his son, and he dealt with him without any mixture of mercy
whatsoever. He didn't hold anything back.
He poured out all of his holy fury upon the son of God, upon
the sacrifice, and he did put that sword up back into its sheath
until justice was satisfied. Until every last sin laid upon
the Savior, had been fully punished and put away by the blood of
Christ. Now, I love to say this when
the Lord says here, this one is my fellow. The Lord Jesus is God. He is
God. It's not like he's God. He's
not a special manifestation of God. He's not, you know, a God
light, a light version of God. He is God. And since he's God,
You know what that means? He can't fail to do what he came
to do. This sacrifice cannot fail to put away the sin of God's
people. The father plunged that sword
into the soul of his son to extract justice. And as horrible as the
physical sufferings of our savior are, he really never talked that
much about his physical sufferings. But boy, he talked about his
soul suffering, didn't he? He talked about that soul suffering
because there's so much worse. He cried, not you Jews, you Jews,
why'd you do this to me? My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? All the suffering of his soul
when his father forsook him because he was made sin. He cried about
his soul suffering because that's where business was being done.
The business of redemption was being done in his soul. That's
where God's justice was being satisfied. When God awoke his
sword and plunged it into the soul of his son. Now the savior,
it's important to know, did not suffer this way for his own sin.
It's not like he displeased the father by his sin and iniquity. The Lord Jesus was perfect. He
was holy. He knew no sin. He did no sin.
He wasn't acquainted with any sin. So why did he suffer like
this? Why has he got these wounds in
his hands? Why was the fountain for sin open? The Savior suffered
like this for a sinful people because he took their sin into
his own body. This people who would be offended
at him, who would stumble at his sufferings, and this people
who would desert him at a drop of a hat, and that includes you
and me now, that's the people Christ died for, a sinful, weak
people. He took their sin away from them
and put it away by his sin-atoning, justice-satisfying blood. And
doing that for those people shows us salvation has to be by grace.
It has to be. This is the redeeming grace that
satisfies God's justice to save sinners. And it's by grace, isn't
it? Completely undeserved. Surely
there's nobody thinks, they're so full of themselves that they
think, I deserve for Christ to suffer like this for me. It's
undeserved. That's grace. Salvation is by
grace. Which brings me to the second point. God saves his,
the means of grace is the blood of Christ. Satisfying God's justice. And the people that God saves,
the people for whom Christ died, they're saved by grace. Now Christ
came and he died for his sheep. He died for the sheep that the
father gave him to save. And sheep's a good word to describe
them, aren't they? There are weak people, there
are sinful people, there are dirty people, there are disobedient
people, people who would wander away from the shepherd. Just,
you know, that's what the disciples did. I mean, they just didn't
wander away from the shepherd because they just didn't really
realize where they were going, not paying attention. They ran
away from the Savior. They deserted him because they
stumbled. They just weren't expecting this.
Now think about this. While the Savior was performing
for his people the greatest act of love and mercy and grace that
has ever been known, ever will be known, right when he was doing
that, that's when they deserved it. Now that's our nature. I mean, that's our nature. That's
our weak faith. Christ died for sinners, for
sinners. And we know we're sinners in
Adam, don't we? We're sinners by birth. That's
the nature we receive in our birth. We're sinners by choice.
It's not like I sin against my will. No, we're sinners by choice.
We choose to sin. We're sinners by practice. Sin
is what we practice. It's our nature. Well, since
that's true about us, the only hope we have of salvation is
God's grace, isn't it? God's gotta give us something
we don't deserve. Salvation and righteousness can't be earned
by a sinner. If all we can do is sin, we can't earn righteousness,
can we? That if we're made righteous, it's got to be in spite of us,
in spite of our works. If God saves us, it has to be
something that's undeserved. And that's what grace is. And
you know, even after the Lord saves us, after the Lord gives
us faith in Christ, you hear who believe on him, you can honestly
say this, I see him. I see him in the scriptures.
I see him with the eye of faith. I believe him. I mean, I cast
my soul upon him. I love him. You can honestly
say, you love the Lord Jesus Christ, can't you? You can honestly
say that. Even after we trust all of our
soul to him, and we really wouldn't think about trying to put our
works on the scales of God's justice to help us be saved.
We trust Christ alone. Even then, Our faith is so weak
and fickle. I mean, the best we can say about
our faith is it's weak. At any given moment in our lives,
just think about this over the course of just the rest of today.
At any moment in this day, the Savior come up to us and look
at us and say, oh ye of little faith. Why'd you fear? Why you worry? Why you doubt?
Oh ye of little faith. That's us, isn't it? Even in
our best state after regeneration, we're still completely dependent
on God to save us and on God to keep us saved. To save us
and to keep us saved because we're sheep and by sheep we'd
just, we'd wander away. Just maybe, maybe it wouldn't
be on purpose. Maybe it's just because we're
so unaware of the shepherd. We'd wander away. We'd think,
well, that grass over there looks good. The grass on the other
side's always greener. They all go over there. And we'd wander
away. The only way we can be kept is
by the shepherd. Thank God he's got a rod and
a staff that comfort us. And you know how they comfort
us? By keeping them close to him. He might have to whack us
on the side a little bit with his staff to keep us from falling
off the cliff or something. But isn't that a comfort when
he uses that to keep you close to him? He may use that staff
as a staff, the one that's got a hook on it, hook you around
the neck and pull you back. You know, that might not be the
most comfortable thing in this world, but isn't it wonderful he pulling
you back, keeping you close to him. That's by his grace. Salvation is by grace from beginning
to ending. And here's the third thing. The
Lord calls his people and he keeps his people by grace. Now,
as soon as the Lord tells his disciples, you're going to be
offended because of me tonight and you're going to be scattered
from the shepherd is going to be smitten and you're going to be
scattered. You're going to desert me. As
soon as he says that, this is what he promises. Look here at
the end of verse seven, Zachariah 13 and I will turn mine hand
upon the little ones. Now this is not going to be the
hand of God's wrath that he turns against his little ones. He didn't
have that for his people. He didn't have a hand of wrath
for his people. God's justice has already been
satisfied by the blood of Christ. Our sins already been put away
by the blood of Christ, by the death of our substitute. So God
doesn't have a hand of wrath that he turns against his people.
This hand that he promises to turn to his people is the far
reaching hand of God's grace. This is the Lord's hand that's
not shortened, that it cannot save. There's not a sheep of
God's who can wander so far away. His great hand can't reach them
and pull them back. God promises he's going to stretch
out his hand of grace and gather his people to himself. And he's
going to keep them there in that great hand. Remember the savior
said, no man can pluck them out of my hand. This is the hand
he's talking about. He's going to turn this hand
of grace upon his people and gather them to himself and keep
them. Look back in our text here, Matthew chapter 26, The Lord tells his disciples
exactly how, how and when he's going to do this in verse 32,
but after I'm risen again, I'll go before you into Galilee. Now the Lord tells you, you're
going to be scattered in fear, but after I'm risen and he's
telling them, I will arise. Now I'm going to die, but I will
arise. I know I'll arise because my sacrifice is going to satisfy
justice for your sin. The sin that causes me to lay
in the tomb, to die and to lay in the tomb, is going to be gone.
So I'm coming out of the tomb. I'm going to arise again. And
when I do, I'll go before you into Galilee. I'm going to go
before you. You're going to be scattered
from me. You're all going to gather together in Galilee, and I'm
going to be there. I'm going to be there where you're
hiding to gather you back to myself in grace. See, I'm going
to the cross to save you by my grace. I'm going to rise again
for your justification. I'm going to come and gather
you back to me. You're going to, you're going to be offended. You're
going to run away from me. You're going to deserve me, but I'm
going to gather you back together, gather you to me by my grace,
and I'm going to keep you forever by my grace. If you look at Mark
chapter 16, I love reading this verse here. Here is just the
fulfillment of what the Lord said he'd do. and I love the
way that he does it and the way that he speaks when he does it. In Matthew chapter 16 verse seven,
this is after the Lord has arisen, but go your way. Tell his disciples in Peter, be sure you tell Peter
the one who was so mouthy. Be sure to tell Peter that he
goes before you into Galilee. There shall you see him. as he
said unto you. He's going to keep his word.
And one more scripture, 2 Timothy chapter 2. You take this verse
with you and we find ourselves, much like the disciples, bragging
on ourselves and then being horribly disappointed in what we do and
horribly disappointed in how weak our faith in Christ is. You take this first verse with
you. It's comfort for our weak faith, 2 Timothy 2 verse 13. You can bank on God's grace.
If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful. Even though we're not
faithful, yet he abideth faithful. He cannot deny himself. He will
give his sheep the grace that Christ bought for them with his
precious blood. You can bank on it. All right,
God bless you.