Well, let's turn in our Bibles
to the book of James, James chapter 1. I want to remember our brother
Eric Floyd, who's preaching in Cottageville this morning. Brady
went with him to show him the way, so we want to make sure
we remember them in prayer. Also, I see some names on there. That's good. Make sure, before
you leave today, you sign Riley's Bible. Riley is our sole graduate
this year. Give that to him, we'll schedule
a dinner in his honor here coming up shortly. All right, James
chapter one, we'll begin reading in verse 16. Do not err, my beloved brethren.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh
down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with
the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruit first
fruits of his creatures. Wherefore, my beloved brethren,
let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. For the wrath of man worketh
not the righteousness of God. Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness
and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with meekness the
engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be you
doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the
word and not a doer, he's like unto a man beholding his natural
face in a glass. For he beholdeth himself, and
goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man
he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and
continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a
doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any
man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue,
but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to
visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep
himself unspotted from the world. All right, let's stand together
as Sean leads us in singing our call to worship. Glory to the Heavenly Father,
fountain of eternal love, who His wandering sheep to gather
sent the Savior from above. To the Son all praise be given,
Who with love unknown before, Left the bride abode of heaven,
And our sins and sorrows bore. Equal strains of warm devotion,
Let the Spirit's praise employ, Author of each whole emotion,
Source of wisdom, peace, and joy. Thus while our glad hearts
ascending glorify Jehovah's name, heavenly songs with flowers are
blending, there the theme is still the same. Okay, if you would turn now to
song number 228. 228. 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 bleed. 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 argument, 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. All right, the pastors ask that
we read from Philippians chapter one. Verses one through 10. Paul and
Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ to all the saints in Christ
Jesus, which are at Philippi with the bishops and deacons.
Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord
Jesus Christ. I thank my God upon every remembrance
of you, always in every prayer of mine, for you all making requests
with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first
day until now. Being confident of this very
thing, that he which had begun a good work in you will perform
it until the day of Jesus Christ. even as it is meet for me to
thank this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch
as both in my bonds and in the defense, in confirmation of the
gospel, you are partakers of my grace. For God is my record,
how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.
In this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more
in knowledge and in judgment, that you may approve things that
are excellent that you may be sincere and without offense till
the day of Christ. Let's pray. We thank you, Lord. It's but
truly a blessing that you have given unto us this place in which
we have to come and worship and sing praise and glory to your
name. What a blessed privilege that is, for we know that You
have a people in whom thou hast said, I will be their God, and
they shall be my people. And we pray, Lord, that we're
among those in whom you have elected and chosen in Christ.
We pray, Lord, that we will be among those in whom you have
given the faith to believe these things. For we know that these
things, the faith in which we have been given, comes by hearing
your word, and only by your word and by the hearing of that word
can we have been given the faith in which we have. We're so thankful,
Lord, that you have sent forth to us a pastor in whom teaches
and preaches us these things in which we have been given,
perfecting us in these things, making us to know these things
with a true understanding, sent in spirit and in truth. And how
blessed, blessed we are, Lord, that we are among those people. And it's a blessing to us each
and every time we come and hear these things. So teach us, Lord,
teach us thy ways. For we know thy ways are all
in Christ Jesus the Lord. For he is the way, the truth,
and the life. So we pray, Lord, that you bless
us here this morning. Bless us in these things. And
it's for these things we pray, in Christ's name, for his sake.
Amen. O Lord my God, when I in awesome
wonder Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made I see the
stars, I hear the rolling thunder Thy power throughout the universe
displayed Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee How great
Thou art How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Wind through the woods and forest
glades I wander and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees. When I look down from lofty mountain
grandeur And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze Then sings
my soul, my Savior God, to Thee How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee How great Thou art! How great Thou art! And when I think that God, His
Son not sparing, Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in. That on the cross my burden gladly
bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin Then sings my
soul, my Savior God, to Thee How great Thou art How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee How great Thou art! How great Thou art! When Christ shall come Wish out
of acclamation and take me home What joy shall fill my heart
Then I shall bow in humble adoration And there proclaim, My God, how
great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee How great Thou art! How great Thou art! If that doesn't prepare your
heart to worship, something's wrong, isn't it? Alright, if
you would, open your Bibles again with me to Philippians 1. The passage Brother Gary just
read to us. Lord willing, begin a study,
verse-by-verse study through this book of Philippians. my
studies this week or any indication I'm really looking forward to
this study. Now the church at Philippi was
a very special congregation to the Apostle Paul. As you read
through this epistle you can just see his love and affection
for them all the way through it. The Lord brought Paul to
Philippi in a miraculous way. And through Paul's preaching
the gospel there, he raised up a very solid congregation. Now,
Paul wrote this letter while he was in prison in Rome during
the reign of Nero. And a lot has changed in the
world since Nero reigned in Rome. But one thing has not changed.
It is the way God saves sinners. God saves his people. by his
grace, which is in Christ Jesus. It always has been that way and
always will be by grace and grace alone. Now, our exact experience
of grace and our experience of how it is that God brings us
to hear the gospel can differ from person to person, but there
are some things that are common in every believer's story of
grace. There are some things that are
common in the way God saves every one of his people Now I've titled
the message this morning, The Story of Saved by Grace. Now
the theme of this letter to the church there at Philippi is to
rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord. And of the
things that we rejoice in the most, it's God's grace to us. God's electing, calling, saving,
keeping grace. So this story, Saved by Grace,
has several chapters in it. And the first chapter is this.
Our story of saved by grace begins when God, when God ever, he saves
one of his people, he sends them a preacher. Verse one, Paul and
Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ to all the saints in Christ
Jesus, which are at Philippi with the bishops and deacons.
Now Paul calls himself and Timothy here, the servants of the Lord.
And like we looked at in our lesson this morning, the servants
that he's talking about here are the servants who preach the
gospel. to God's people. This is how the Lord saves his
people. This is how the Lord reveals
himself to his people and puts faith in the hearts of his people.
It's through the preaching of the gospel. It's never by the
preaching of a lie, by preaching of something that's not true,
by the preaching of another Jesus. It's always by the preaching
of the gospel. When God saves his people, there's
got to be a preacher. Now, I say that, that does not
exalt preachers. Preachers are just sinners saved
by grace, same as every other believer. But this does exalt
preaching. The importance of preaching,
the importance of hearing the gospel. We're not exalting the
preacher ever above other believers, but I'm telling you this, you
better listen to the preacher that God sends to you because
this is the way you'll hear from God. It's through the preacher
that he sends to you. The way the church at Philippi
began was by listening to the preacher God sent to him. God
sent Paul to town and he preached. That's how God saves his people.
It's pleased God by the foolishness of preaching, preaching to save
them to believe. And look back at Acts chapter
16. I'll show you how this all came to be in the church at Philippi. Acts
chapter 16. Paul had just been traveling
all over the place preaching and churches were established
and congregations and pastors were raised up. Here in Acts
16 verse six. Now, when they had gone through
Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy
Ghost to preach the word in Asia. Paul determined he was going
to go to Asia, but the Holy Ghost forbid them to go there. After
they were come to Mysia, They say to go to Bithynia. Paul determined
we'll go to Bithynia and preach. But the spirit suffered them
not. The spirit wouldn't allow them to go there. And they, passing
by Mysia, came to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul
in the night. There stood a man of Macedonia and prayed him saying,
come over unto Macedonia and help us. Now Paul determined
he's going to go to all these other places and preach. And
the spirit didn't allow him to go there. And this man appeared
to him in a vision. He sounds to me a whole lot like
the Ethiopian eunuch, doesn't he, Hugh? He said, Paul, come
and help us. How can we understand the scriptures?
How can we know who this is talking about except some man help us?
Somebody's got to guide me, show me, what does this mean? Come
preach Christ to us so we can know him and believe him. And
Paul went. In verse 10, it says, after he
had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia.
assuredly gathering that the Lord had called for us to go
preach the gospel unto them. Now the Spirit opened the door
and Paul was determined. Boy, he got there as fast as
he could to preach the gospel. And when he got there to Philippi,
he found a group of ladies who were meeting down by a river
bank to have a prayer meeting. And he met Lydia there. And Paul
came and he preached Christ to them. And out of that group of
women, the Lord saved Lydia and all her house because Paul came
and preached to them. A little bit later, they threw
Paul and Silas into prison. You remember the story, God shook
the prison, the doors all opened, the chains all fell off, and
the jailer thought the prisoners had all escaped. He's getting
ready to run himself through with a sword and kill himself. And Paul stops,
don't do yourself any harm. We're all here. And that jailer
came in and he wondered about Paul and Silas. And Paul preached
Christ to him. He said, sirs, what must I do
to be saved? He said, you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let me tell you about him. He preached Christ to him. And
that jailer and all his household believed. And that was the beginning
of the church at Philippi. Pretty miraculous, wasn't it?
But the Lord saved you and me. It may not have been quite as
miraculous as this, but somehow, miraculously, through no fault
of our own, through no doing of our own, the Lord brought
us to hear the gospel. He sent a man to preach the gospel
to me. God in his mercy and grace sent
a preacher to us to preach Christ to us. And God gave us life and
faith to believe. And he does that through the
preaching of the gospel. Nobody figures this thing out
on their own. This thing is salvation. God
graciously sends us a preacher who's bold enough to preach Christ
and Christ alone to us. And God uses that preaching to
save his people. All right, here's the second
chapter in our story of grace. When God saves a sinner, it's
always by grace. Look at verse two in our text.
Grace be unto you. That grace. It takes grace to
save a sinner. You know, the whole human race
fell into sin in Adam. When Adam sinned, he was our
representative. When Adam sinned, we did too.
We sinned in him. What Adam did, we did. And when
we fell in sin, We became dead in sin, so that everything that
we do, everything we say, everything we think, everything we want
to do, all of our motives are all sin. Our nature's not capable
of doing anything but sin. Our nature's not capable of doing
anything righteous. We can't do anything to please
God. Our nature's not capable of that. We don't have any ability
in our nature to love God. Oh, we love the God of our imagination,
but not the God of this book. We don't have any ability of
our nature to believe on Christ. We cannot believe. You cannot
make yourself believe on Christ. God's got to give you faith to
do it. We can't make ourselves trust Christ. I mean, we might
kind of want to lean on him, but, you know, we're going to
do our part, too. By nature, we can't trust Christ. We don't have any ability to
believe or love any truth, spiritual truth of the gospel, because
we're dead in sin. So if we're gonna be saved, somebody's
gotta do all the saving for us, don't they? That's grace. And here is the undeserved free
gift, free grace of God. Even though all of our sin is
against God. I mean, you can't just say, well,
sin is just, you know, doesn't affect anybody. Our sin is open
rebellion against God Almighty. and we can't do anything to make
up for it, by nature we don't even want to do anything to make
up for it. We're in open rebellion against
God Almighty and God saves His people anyway. That's grace. He saves us anyway. It's not
something we deserve, it's a free gift of God. From its beginning
to its ending, salvation is all of grace. All of grace. Salvation begins in electing
grace. When the father chose a people
to save, and buddy, that was grace, because he chose a people
who never would choose him. And he chose to save them anyway.
He set his love and affection on them anyway. They're saving
grace. When the father sent his son
into this world to die, he was born, the son of God was born
to die as a substitute and sacrifice for his people so that he would
redeem his people from their sins. We're just like those folks
at the cross, trying to do every painful, horrible
thing that we can think of to the Son of God. You believe,
you know this, it's your sin and eldermere, your sin and eldermere.
Yet he prayed, Father, forgive them. Oh my, that's grace, isn't
it? Then there's regenerating grace.
And God the Holy Spirit comes in the preaching of the gospel.
He moves with power and he gives life to a dead sinner. There's
life that wasn't there before. It's spiritual life. Sometimes
you can see, you can tell that it's happened. You just tell
when you're preaching to somebody when the light's on and when
it's not. Sometimes you think, I think the light's on there.
God gave life. God the Holy Spirit gave life.
He gave a new, righteous, holy nature in the new birth. It's
a nature that loves God. that believes God, that does
everything that old nature can't do. Then there's calling grace. God, the Holy Spirit, powerfully,
irresistibly calls his people to Christ, and he gives them
life to come. And they come. A dead man can't
come to Christ, but a living one can. The Spirit gives life
and calls his people to Christ. And when he calls, oh, we come
running. What an act of grace that God
Almighty would call dirty, wretched, vile sinners like you and me
to come to his son, to hug up next to his son. That's great,
calling grace. And thank God there's keeping
grace. When God keeps his people from falling away from him, we
leave in a heartbeat. We fall away in a heartbeat.
But there's keeping grace where he holds his people in his hand.
He said, no man's able to pluck them out of my hand. He keeps
his people by his grace. And then there's glorifying grace.
When the day comes, God takes his child home. Oh, we weep and
cry. We weep for the one who's gone. We won't have the conversations
and love and fellowship with them anymore. Oh, that child's
not weeping. The Father's come taking him
home, taking him to glory, to be with him forever. It's glorifying
grace. See, salvation is by grace. Salvation where God does all
the saving even though we don't deserve it. That's salvation
by grace. And that is the only kind of
grace that can save a sinner like you and me. Grace that depends
on you to do something. That's not salvation by grace.
That's salvation by you doing something. That's salvation by
grace plus you doing something. Salvation is all of grace. And that's God's grace to his
people. It won't fail. It won't fail to save any of
his people. Then here's the third chapter in our story of grace.
When God saves a sinner, he gives them peace in the heart. In verse
two, Paul says, grace be unto you and peace. That's got to
come from God, our father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Now
there's got to be peace. We need peace. And I'll tell
you why we so desperately need this peace, is by nature we're
at war with God. We were in Adam, we've declared
war on God, and we carry out that war all the days of our
lives. Now, I say that we're at war
with God. Nobody will tell you they want
to go to hell. If somebody tells you they want to go to hell,
they're either lying or they're insane. Nobody wants to go to
hell. But our nature is dead in sin. We are so self-righteous. We
have such an inflated view of self, and we hate God's way of
salvation in Christ so much, we refuse to submit. There'd
be peace if we just surrendered. There'd be peace with God if
we just submit. But we refuse to submit to the righteousness
of Christ. We refuse to submit to the righteousness of Christ
because we think we can do just fine on our own. I think I'm
just good enough on my own, you know. I will not have this man
Jesus to reign over me. No, I'm going to be my own boss.
I'm going to be my own man. It's Adam's nature, isn't it?
It's Adam's nature. You know why Adam took that fruit
and ate it? He wanted to be God. He wanted to be the one to make
the rules. We're the same way. I won't have this man Jesus to
reign over me. We cry crucify him and give us
Barabbas. Give me a criminal. Give me my
own righteousness. I'm not going to submit. Now,
you know, just like those folks at the cross, we're very religious.
But all of our religious activity, I mean, you get busy and the
religious activity will not get peace in our You ever notice
that with people in religion? Oh, they're so religious, but
there's no peace. They're afraid. They're still
afraid to meet God in judgment. And I'll tell you something else
about our religious activity. It doesn't give us peace with
each other either. All this religious activity, going about to establish
your own righteousness, trying to keep the law, it just makes
us mean and judgmental. in our self-righteousness. It
makes us that evil servant that just wants to beat the sheep
with the rod of the law. That's all it does. See, we've
declared war on God. We can't have peace with God.
We can't have peace with each other. Man's religion, I'll tell
you what it does. It doesn't bring us closer to
God. It makes us shake our fist in the face of God Almighty and
say, I will not surrender. I'd rather die than surrender.
Now if there's going to be peace, God, who's the offended party,
is going to have to be the one to make it, isn't he? Because
we won't do it. Not only can we not do it, we
won't do it. If there's going to be peace,
God has to make it. And in his mercy, in his grace
to his people, that's exactly what he did. The father sent
his son into this earth to make peace for his people. And the
only way there can be peace with God, the son had to become a
man, to be our sacrifice, to be our substitute. He had to
be a man so he could be made sin for his people. The father
transferred the sin of his people to his son. And that was not
just a legal transaction. The son was made sin. He felt
the guilt of it and the shame of it. And when the father made
his son sin, the father slaughtered him. He slaughtered him. He put
him to death for that sin. God's justice demands there be
death for sin. The sin of God's elect became
sons, and the Father put Him to death in justice. And because
of the death of Christ, all the sin of God's people, all that
sin that was laid on the Savior is gone. His blood washed it
away. His blood atoned for it, it paid
for it. Whatever term that you want to use for it, the blood
of Christ put away the sin of God's people. And God's justice
is satisfied. The Son died. Justice is satisfied. Justice
demands there be death for sin. The substitute died. The one
who has made sin died. So God's not angry anymore. His
justice is satisfied. God's at peace. He's not angry. The blood of Christ took away
all the sin that made him angry. There's no, there's no fury left
in him for his people. All that's left in the father
for his people is mercy and grace. Because the blood of Christ satisfied
God's justice and took away the sin that made God angry. But
now God's elect, they're still at war, aren't they? They're
born into this world with a nature that hates God, that won't surrender,
with that nature that says, I'd die rather than submit. I'm gonna
have my way, I'm just a stiff necked people. They're still
at war with God. And God the Holy Spirit comes.
And he gives a new nature in the new birth. And that new man
lovingly and willingly surrenders to God. That new man said, wait
a minute, you're telling me that I can give up my filthy rags
of righteousness and I can be made the righteousness of God
in him, in Christ? Sounds like good trade to me.
He lovingly and willingly submits. He bows at the feet of Christ.
And this I can tell you, If you ever find yourself at the feet
of Christ, you'll have peace of heart. That's where we have
peace, when we're at His feet. God's not angry anymore, and
I'm not either. I'm not either. The blood of
Christ answered God's demand and answered my need, put my
sin away, and I'm at peace. And there's peace in the heart.
When I think about meeting God in judgment, there's no fear. There's no fear. Because the
substitute already died. There's no fear of meeting God
in judgment. We'll see this in just a moment.
There's peace with God. And when there's peace with God
in the heart, there's going to be peace with God's people too.
There's going to be no more of this trying to beat one another
up with the law and over-repointing one another to Christ. And there's
peace. Alright, here's the fourth chapter
in our story of grace. When God saves a sinner, He makes
that sinner thankful. Verse 3, Paul says, I thank my
God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of
mine for you all, making request with joy. God's people are thankful
people. If God saved you by His grace,
if God saved you anyway, gave you what you don't deserve, you
got to be thankful, don't you? Don't you have to be thankful
if God saved you by His grace? If everything you have, God gave
to you freely. You didn't deserve it. You didn't
earn it. God gave it to you freely. He just opened up his hand and
gave it to you. Don't you have to be thankful? Of course you
do. You know, this is true of every
physical gift. Every physical gift you have,
the breath that you just drew is a gift of God. Every gift
you have, whatever gift it is that you use to help God's people.
Isaac, your gift to sing is special. That's such a blessing, wasn't
it? But that was a gift of God. Every physical gift you have
and every spiritual gift. What one of them did you earn?
Did you earn God's mercy? Did you earn his grace? Did you
earn his love? Surely you don't think you deserve
God should love you, do you? Every spiritual gift he's given
you is a free gift. Ain't you thankful? And we're
thankful for each other. You know, Paul says, he said,
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you. And I hope I say this
often enough, how thankful that I am for you. My love for you,
my care for you. I thank God for you. You're just
such a blessing to me, such an encouragement. I thank God for
you. We thank God for each other.
And that brings me to the fifth chapter in our story of grace.
When God saves a sinner, he gives them fellowship. Verse five,
Paul says, I'm thankful for your fellowship in the gospel from
the first day until now. This matter of fellowship, first,
Christ restores the fellowship with the father that we lost
in Adam. You think about Adam in the garden. I wonder how tortured he must
have been for 900 years after he left the garden. To think
back to that time when he was in the garden, he had fellowship
with the Lord Jesus Christ. It says God came and walked with
him in the cool of the day. That's Christ. That's Christ
the Savior. He used to walk and talk with
Christ the Savior. He was innocent at that time.
The fellowship that they had with each other, what they must
have talked about, how blessed that must have been. And when
Adam sinned, he lost that fellowship. He lost it. He didn't even want
it anymore. By nature, he didn't even want
it anymore. Now Adam's dead. He's dead in sin, and death and
life can't have fellowship with each other. Light and darkness
can't have fellowship with each other. A sinner cannot come into
the presence of a holy God. Can't do it and live. God's holiness
won't allow it. It would consume us. There's
no fellowship. There's a divide that man cannot
cross. Well, again, here's grace. This
is our story of grace. Christ came. to put away the
sin of his people and to give them a new nature so that they
can have fellowship with God. Christ, our Savior, brings his
people into the very presence of the Father. That's fellowship. The Father hears the weak prayers,
the weak cries of his people. He hears us for Christ's sake. That's fellowship with God. Look
at 1 John 1. 1 John 1. Verse 3. That which we have seen
and heard, declare we unto you. Now what is it that John has
seen and heard? He'd been with the Savior for those three and
a half years of his earthly ministry. I've seen him, I've heard him.
We declare him, we're preaching him to you. Here's the result
of that preaching. that ye also may have fellowship
with us. And truly our fellowship is with
the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. Now the fellowship
the believers have is with the Father, with God. As we preach the gospel, Christ
is here in the midst of us. We have fellowship with Him.
And believers also have fellowship with each other. We both have
fellowship with the same person. So we have fellowship with each
other. We don't get to spend as much time with each other
as we would like. But there is a kinship of spirit
between believers. I can't tell you how many times
I've gone someplace to preach. And first time I've ever been
there. And I meet God's people and there's just an instant kinship
of spirit between believers. We have things in common. You
know, you're friends, you just have out there in the world.
You're friends with people that you have something in common
with, aren't you? Believers have things in common that draw us
together. We've been saved by the same
grace that draws us together. We've been given the same new
nature that, and you know, when I preach to you, if I'm preaching
Christ, your spirits bear witness with my spirit. We have, we have
the same nature that draws us together. We love the same savior
and we suffer the same trials and same afflictions. And when
you suffer things, God brings you through it. Paul said that
so you can help somebody else when they go through the same
thing. You can go tell them how God comforted you, how God helped
you. We suffer the same trials and afflictions. These things
in common draws us together. The Lord of glory loves both
of us. I believe we can love one another,
don't you reckon? And Paul loved these people. Look what he says
in verse eight. For God is my record. He said, I'm not just
saying this now. God is my record. How greatly
I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. In this I pray
that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and
in all judgment. We love one another because God
loves both of us. Love is the defining characteristic
of a believer. The Savior said, by this shall
all men know that you're my disciples. that you love one another. And
where there is no love for all the saints, there's just no evidence
of any work in the heart by the spirit. Where God gives grace,
saving grace, there's love in the heart and fellowship one
with another. Then here's our sixth chapter in the story of
grace. When God saves a sinner, you
can bank on this. He's gonna finish the work, verse
six. being confident of this very
thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform
it until the day of Jesus Christ. Now salvation is a big work. It's a big work. It requires
a work for us. It requires that God do a work
for us. We can't do it ourselves. God's got to do that work for
us. And he's done that work of grace. The work of grace he's
done for his people. That work began in divine election.
The Father chose a people to save. In His electing love, He
chose a people. He did that for them. God the
Son came in the flesh and He did a work for God's elect. He came in the flesh and He did
for them what they can't do for themselves. He obeyed the law
for them. So He could give to them His
perfect obedience. That they were in Him doing what
He did the same way all of us were in Adam, doing what Adam
did. God's elect were in Christ doing what Whatever it was, he
did. But what did he do? Perfection. Perfect obedience. All of his people did too. That's
the work he did for us. He didn't need to come to obey
the law to make himself righteous, did he? He's righteous by nature.
He came to obey the law perfectly to give his people a righteousness.
That's the work he did for his people. Then the son did a work
for his people when he took their sins. willingly sacrificed himself
to put their sin away. He did that for his people. Now
that's the work done for us. But salvation also requires a
work in us. Paul here talks about a work
done in us. And that work done in us is the
work of God the Holy Spirit. God comes and he performs a miracle. He gives life in the hearts of
his people. He gives them life in the new
birth where he causes a new man, a new nature to be born. The
old nature, same as it ever was. It's still dead and lost in sin
as it ever was. Never will change. That which
is born of the flesh is flesh. All it can be is flesh. But there's
a new nature now. The nature of the spirit. A holy,
righteous nature. It's a nature that cannot sin.
It's a nature that can't not believe Christ. It must believe
Him. It must cling to Him. It must look to Him. Now that's
a work that's been begun. By God the Father. It's not perfect
yet, is it? It's not finished yet, is it?
Here we are, still in the flesh. It's not finished yet. I'd hate
to spend eternity just like he is, wouldn't you? God's not finished
yet. But he's gonna finish it. He'll
perform it to the end. I know this. God's people, if
God saved them, they'll not fall away from Christ. They'll not
do it. They can't. Because God won't
let them. They would if God left it up
to them, but God won't leave it up to them. He won't let them.
He's gonna keep them by the power of His grace through faith. God
won't allow that holy nature. He won't allow us to ruin it
by our sin. See, that nature is born of God can never sin.
It's born from holy, perfect, sinless seed, the Word of God.
See, the reason that this flesh is sinful is because it's born
from sinful seed, the seed of our Father. The new man that's
born of God is born from the seed of the Word of God. holy
and perfect, that life is just like the seed that begat it.
It's perfect and holy, it can never sin. And that nature will
always be found perfect, be found innocent and righteous until
the day of the Lord. And when Paul here talks about
the day of the Lord, he talks about that day of judgment, the
judgment day. And that day, the day of judgment,
God's going to find all of his people innocent, righteous and
perfect, because that's what he made us. And in that day,
we die. It could be the day of the Lord's
return. It could be the day that we die. It's appointed unto men
once to die, and after this, the judgment. In that day, that
new nature is finally going to be separated from this old dead
body. And it's that new man that's
going to go be with the Lord. It's that new nature. When Christ
comes again, He's going to clothe that new nature in a perfect
body to match the perfect nature. And it's in that body In that
nature, we will be forever with the Lord. In that day, our salvation
is going to be complete. It's finally going to be done,
and we're going to shout, it was all the work of the Lord.
Praise the Lord. It was all His work. The only
thing we contributed to our salvation is our sin and our need to be
saved. We didn't do one work of salvation.
God did it all. He did it all for us, and He
did it in us. And we're going to spend eternity
singing the praises of the one who did all the saving for us.
You know, that's the hope God's people have today. Is that your
hope? It's your hope. Oh, that's the
hope that God's given you. But you know what? That's always
been the hope of God's people. Look back at Psalm 138. This
was David's hope that God's going to finish the
work. Psalm 138, verse seven. Though I walk in the midst
of trouble, thou wilt revive me. Thou shalt stretch forth
thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right
hand shall save me. The Lord will perfect. He's going
to finish that which concerneth me. Thy mercy, O Lord, endureth
forever. Forsake not the works of thine
own hands. And you know what? He won't.
God will never forsake the work of His own hands. He's never
going to forsake the people that He foreknew. That's a good hope,
isn't it? A good hope through grace. And
that brings me to the last chapter here of our story of grace. When
God saves a sinner, we can have confidence. In verse 7, Paul
says, even as it's me, it's right for me to think this of you all,
because I have you in my heart, insomuch as both in my bonds
and confirmation of the gospel. Y'all partakers of my grace.
When God saves a sinner's confidence, it's right for us to believe
this. It's right for us to have this hope. Now there's a long
way between here and glory. A long way. How can we be confident
that we'll be there? How do I know I won't fall away
between now and then? How do I know that? How can I
be so sure that God's the one who's begun this work in me.
How do I know I'm not just religious and deceiving myself? James said
you can do that. How do I know that? Well, here's
our confidence. Did the Lord do all the saving?
Did God do all the saving of you? Then you can be confident
He'll finish it. Now, if you did something to
get this ball rolling, you did something to keep it rolling,
don't have any confidence in that. But if God did all the
saving, You can have confidence in that. This is why Paul said,
I'm fully persuaded of this, fully, completely persuaded of
this, that the Lord's going to keep everything I've committed
to him against that day, against that day of judgment. If Christ
is all my righteousness and Christ is my salvation, then I must
be innocent. I must be found innocent in that
day. If Christ is my righteousness, the Father must accept me. If
Christ is my surety, Nothing can be lost. Nothing can be. That's why I'm fully persuaded
he's going to keep it. See, it's right to have confidence of salvation. If your salvation is a work of
God's grace in your heart, it's right to have confidence in salvation. If there's genuine faith and
love in your heart, if that faith and love is in your heart, God
put it there. Then it's right to have confidence in that salvation.
That's the story of Saved by Grace. It's what God's done. He's done it for us, and He's
done it all. And He's going to finish it. He's going to finish
it. I hope God will be pleased to make that our story this morning. Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for your grace. How we thank you. How you pity your people. How
you know that we're but dust and you didn't leave any part
of salvation up to us, but that you did it all because of your
grace and love and mercy to your people and Christ our Savior. Father, I pray you take the words
that's been preached this morning and bless it. Bless it to your
glory, to the hearts of your people that we might see the
glory, the wonder that Christ the Savior would do such a work
for such a people as we are. and cause us to run to Him. Believe
Him. Rest in Him. Find in Him our
all and in all. It's in His precious name. For
His glory we pray. Amen. Now if you would, before
you leave today, remember to sign Riley's Bible down here.
You know the drill by now. I'm not going to give it to him
until everybody signs it. So don't make me chase you. Sign it today,
OK? All right, Sean. If you would stand and turn to
song number 512. Saved by Grace. Someday the silver cord will
break, and I no more as now shall sing, but oh the joy when I shall
wake within the palace of the King. And I shall see Him face
to face and tell the story saved by grace. And I shall see Him
face to face and tell the story saved by grace. Someday my earthly house will
fall. I cannot tell how soon it will
be. But this I know, my all in all,
has now a place in heaven for me. And I shall see Him face
to face, And tell the story saved by grace. And I shall see Him
face to face, and tell the story, say, by grace. Someday when faced the golden
sun beneath the rosy-tinted west, my blessed lord will say well
done and i shall enter in to rest and i shall see him face
to face and tell the story saved by grace and i shall see him
face to face and tell the story safe by grace someday till then
i'll watch and wait my lamp i'll trim and That when my Savior opens the
gate, My soul to Him may take its flight. And I shall see Him
face to face, And tell the story saved by grace. And I shall see Him face to face,
And tell the story saved by grace.