All right, if you would open
your Bibles with me, 2 Corinthians chapter 5. 2 Corinthians chapter
5. Lord willing, I'll be preaching
in Danville, Kentucky on Tuesday. I'll cover your prayers as we
travel and preach there. 2 Corinthians 5, we'll begin
our reading in verse 17. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he's a new creature. He's a new creation. Old things
are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself
by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. To wit, namely, this is our message
of reconciliation, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world
unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath
committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we're
ambassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech you
by us, we pray you in Christ's dead, be ye reconciled to God. For here's why you should be
reconciled to God. For he, the father, hath made
him the son. Sin for us, who knew no sin,
that we might be made the righteousness of God. him. All right, let's
stand together as Isaac leads us in singing our call to worship. Thus the Lord my Savior is, my
Shepherd and my God, my hope, my life, my joy, my bliss, and
I His grace record, and I His grace record. Mercy and truth and righteousness
and peace most richly meet in Jesus Christ, our King of grace,
in whom we stand complete, in whom we stand complete. Dear Lord, forbid that we should
boast, save in the cross of Christ. Here may we confidently trust
and solemnly rejoice, and solemnly rejoice. As through the wilderness
I roam His mercies I'll proclaim And when I safely reach my home
I'll still adore His name I'll still adore His name Stay standing
and turn to 206 so Wonderful grace of Jesus Greater
than all my sin How shall my tongue describe it? Where shall its praise begin? Taking away my burden Setting
my spirit free For the wonderful grace of Jesus Wonderful the matchless grace
of Jesus, Deeper than the mighty rolling sea. Higher than the
mountains, sparkling like a fountain, all sufficient grace for even
me. Broader than the scope of my
transgressions, greater far than all my sin and shame, O magnify
the precious name of Jesus, praise His name. Wonderful grace of Jesus, reaching
to all the lost. By it I have been parted. Saved to the uttermost Chains
have been torn asunder Giving me liberty For the wonderful
grace of Jesus Reaches me Wonderful the matchless grace of Jesus
Deeper than the mighty rolling sea Higher than the mountains,
sparkling like a fountain, all sufficient grace for even me. Broader than the scope of my
transgressions, greater far than all my sin and shame, O magnify
the precious name of Jesus, praise His name. Wonderful grace of Jesus Reaching
the most defiled By its transforming power Making him God's dear child
Purchasing peace and heaven For all eternity And the wonderful
grace of Jesus Wonderful, the matchless grace
of Jesus, Deeper than the mighty rolling sea. Higher than the
mountains, sparkling like a fountain, all sufficient grace for even
me. Broader than the scope of my
transgressions, greater far than all my sin and shame. Oh, magnify the precious name
of Jesus, praise His name. You may be seated. Pastor ask if we read out of
Colossians chapter one, verses 12 through 23. Giving thanks unto the Father,
which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of
darkness and hath translated us and to the kingdom of his
dear son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness
of sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn
of every creature. For by him were all things created
that are in heaven, that are in earth, visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers,
or things were created by him, all things were created by him
and for him. and his before all things, and
by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body,
the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased
the Father that in him should all fullness dwell, and having
made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile
all things unto himself. By him, I say, whether they be
things in earth or things in heaven, and you that were sometimes
alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now
hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to
present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight.
If you continue in the faith, grounded and settled, be not
moved away from the hope of the gospel which you have heard and
which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, whereof
I, Paul, am made a minister. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. We thank you, Lord, for your
word. For we know that your word is
the infallible word of God. And it's only by these words
can this gospel be preached unto us. It is a blessing to us this
morning that you have given to us and have called to us a preacher
that can and will preach and teach us these things, perfecting
us in the infallible word of God. And we know that it's only
those and none others, but those in whom that you have elected
and chosen in Christ. Only they can and will hear these
things and hear these things with a true understanding. an
understanding that's of God and only of God, sent by Spirit and
in truth. Only by the gospel can we know
these things. We thank you, Lord, for them.
We pray for those, Lord, in whom we're going through these difficult
times, these times of troubles, suffering these afflictions,
these infirmities of this flesh, the trials, the tribulations
of this world, all these things. We know Don't happen by chance,
but these things too hath been ordained by you that you're over
all things as we read. So we thank you, Lord, for enabling
us to worship such a God as this. We pray these things in Christ's
name and for his sake. Help me on the chorus. Once my soul was astray from
the heavenly fray. I was wretched and vile as could
be. But my Savior in love Gave me
peace from above When He reached down His hand for me When Christ
Jesus reached down for me When He reached way down for
me I was lost and undone Without God's precious Son When He reached
down His hand for me I was near to despair when He
came to me there. And He showed me that I could
be free. Then He lifted my feet, gave
me gladness complete. down his hand for me. When Christ Jesus reached down
for me, when he reached way down I was lost and undone without
God's precious Son when He reached down His hand for me. How my heart does rejoice when
I hear His sweet voice. In the tempest to Him I then
flee, there to lean on His arms, safe, secure from all harm. down his hand for me. When Christ Jesus reached down
for me, when he reached way down for me, I was lost and undone without
God's precious Son when He reached down His hand for me. I was lost and undone Without
God's precious Son When He reached down His hand Alright, if you would, open your
Bibles again with me to Colossians chapter 1. Colossians, the first chapter.
I've titled the message this morning, What Christ Did for
His People. Now the previous verses we looked
at last Sunday, Paul had given us a description of the Savior.
He told us that the Lord Jesus Christ is God. Since he's God,
you can trust him. He's got the power and he's got
the grace to save. He told us that the Lord Jesus
Christ is the creator. He's the one who created the
world. He spoke it all into existence. And since he's the creator, you
can trust him. He's got the power to create in you a new heart.
He told us that Christ is the head of the church. Since he's
the head of the church, everything the body has all comes from the
head. Since Christ is the head of the church, you can trust
Him to save you, to be your Savior. God's elect receive every spiritual
blessing we have, joined to Christ our head. We get our righteousness,
our sanctification, our holiness. We get our life. We get every
blessing. We get our inheritance from God,
all by being joined to Christ. That's who the Lord Jesus Christ
is. What a Savior that Paul describes
to us here. Picking up in our text this morning,
verse 20, Paul's gonna start telling us what this glorious
savior has done for his people. Number one is this, Christ has
made peace for his people. Verse 20, Colossians 1, and having
made peace through the blood of his cross. Now this thing
of making peace is vitally important because man is at war with God. When Adam sinned against God,
All of us sinned in our father Adam. In our father Adam, you
and I declared war on God. Our nature can't do anything
else. It's a sin nature that can't do anything else. The carnal
mind is enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can it be. It can't be subject to God. It's
got to be at war with God. It's the opposite of God. Man
is angry with God. Man hates God. to reign over
us, to make the rules over us, to be the one who's controlling
everything. And you know what else? God's angry with the wicked
every day. God's at war too. Don't fall
into this mistake where people, you know, they kind of give the
impression, you know, God's this warm, fuzzy old man, just wants
everybody to love him. And you know what? I mean, no
matter what, he'll just accept you. No matter what, if you'll
just accept him first. Not in your sin and your rebellion,
he won't. No, he won't either. God is holy. God cannot and will
not accept anyone in their sin. Scripture says God can't even
look on sin. Can't even look on it. The very reason that the
father slaughtered his only begotten son. The father spoke from heaven,
said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. Now
this is the son of the father's love. The Son in whom He's well
pleased, tell me why on earth would He slaughter Him in such
a horrible way? Let me tell you, because He was
made sin. The Son was made sin for His
people. And when sin was found on His
Son, the Holy Father slaughtered Him for it. Slaughtered Him.
Where there's sin, there must be death. That's how strict the
justice of God is. God will not compromise His holy
justice even for his beloved son. He won't do it because God's
holy. Now if God will not spare his
only son, you can rest assured of this, he's not gonna spare
you and me either. Not in our sin he won't. But this is also
true, equally true. God is love. God is gracious. God must be just. But he must also be gracious.
So you know what God did? He chose to save a sinful people
who don't deserve it. By His grace, He chose. By His
grace and His love, He chose to save those people. But there's
this thing of God's justice. God's justice still must be satisfied
for the sin of those people that the Father chose to save. There
just can't be any peace with God until God's justice against
the sin of those people and the rebellion of those people be
satisfied. So you know what God did? He
sent His Son. He sent the son of his love,
his darling son, to make peace for his elect people. And he
made peace for those people by taking their place, by taking
their sin, by taking their place under God's wrath, under his
justice and satisfying justice for them. Putting away God's
wrath for them by suffering and dying in their place as their
substitute. He suffered until their sin was gone. Now I want you to think how amazing
that that is. Not just what God's son would
do, but who he'd do it for. God isn't the one who started
this war, is he? No man started this war. Adam
did it, and you and I, we did it in him, and we've continued
it too. We've continued this war. Yet God is the one who made
peace. Now normally, in a war, The side
who is losing is the side that has to sue for peace, right?
I mean, the side that's winning just keeps pouring it on and
pouring it on and pouring it on till the defeated enemy either
asks for peace or they're completely destroyed. One or the other.
The side that's winning the war is not the one begging for peace.
Well, God's not losing the war. God didn't lose the war, so somehow
he's forced to sue for peace and beg people to, you know,
love him and accept him, be at peace with him. Man's lost the
war. Man lost it. Man's the one who
will be destroyed by God's justice. And show you how dead in sin
we are, we still won't sue for peace. Man still won't beg God
for peace. So God had to be the one to come
and make peace for his people. Son of God came in the flesh
so that he could be the representative of his people. He became one
of them. He became flesh so that he could be the substitute for
his people. so that he could be made sin for them. And when
the father made the son sin for his people, the sin of God's
elect became the sin of the Lord Jesus Christ. He suffered everything
that sin is. Everything. With the exception
of the commission of it. He felt the guilt of it. He felt
the shame of it. And he suffered the penalty of
it. Now he could only suffer the penalty of that sin if it's
his. God can't, God's holy. God's just. God can't put an
innocent man to death. He suffered the penalty of it.
He died because that sin, the sin of his elect became his sin.
And since that sin, the sin of God's elect fully became the
sin of Christ, his blood and his death could pay for it and
put it away. The blood of Christ, has blotted
out the sin of God's elect so completely, so fully, God who
sees everything doesn't see it anymore. God describes it in
terms that you and I can understand. He says, cast behind my back.
Well, where's that? God's everywhere. That means
it doesn't exist anymore. The blood of Christ, the sacrifice
of Christ took away the sin that made God angry. So God's at peace. God's at peace. That's the first
way Christ came, made peace for His people. He came and did something
for God. He came and did something for
Himself. He put away the sin of God's elect so God wouldn't
be angry anymore. But now, this war's a two-way
street. Something's got to be done about you and me still.
See, first Christ had to do something for God. Second, He had to do
something for us. Here's the second way Christ
made peace by the blood of His cross. When the Holy Spirit applies
the blood of Christ to the hearts of God's elect, they're given
a new heart. They're given a new nature. That
blood purges their sin. They're given a new heart. A
heart that loves God. A heart that will believe Christ.
That will trust Christ. That will love Christ. And here's
the other thing. A heart that will surrender.
This old heart of Adam will never surrender. Adam showed us that
right from the get-go in the garden. After he ate that fruit,
God came looking for Adam in the garden. He knew that they'd
made themselves fig leaf aprons, but they were still ashamed.
They were still afraid of God. They were hiding in the bushes.
They were hiding from the bushes from God. God said, Adam, where
are you? He called Adam out. He said,
what have you done? You've ate the fruit, didn't
you? The tree I commanded you not to eat. Adam didn't say,
yes, Lord, I did. I'm so sorry. Please forgive
me. I've got no excuse. Lord, I beg Your pardon. I beg
Your forgiveness. I beg You to have mercy on me."
He didn't do that, did he? He said, God, it's Your fault.
This woman. If you hadn't made this woman,
none of this would have happened. God, it's Your fault. He wouldn't
surrender. The man in our parable, in our lesson this morning, when
the king said, what are you doing here without a wedding garment on?
He didn't say, king, I'm so sorry. Would you have mercy on me? Let
me have the wedding garment? He didn't say that. He was just
speechless. Man by nature will never surrender. But when the
blood of Christ is applied to our hearts, we gladly surrender. We stack our arms and surrender. The heart. You see, there can
be no peace with God until we surrender. It's the blood of
Christ that makes the sinner surrender to God. Now, the sinner
is not mad at God anymore either. And there's peace. There's peace. See, there's two things. Our
sin must be put away and we must surrender. And the blood of Christ
accomplished both. The sacrifice of Christ accomplished
both. The sacrifice of Christ pleased
the Father. It pleased His justice. It satisfied
His justice by putting that sin away. And it's the sacrifice
of Christ. Seeing He did that for me. Somebody as glorious as the Son
of God. was lifted up on the cross. He
died to curse death on the tree for somebody like me. Oh my. That breaks my heart. Makes me
run to him, doesn't it? That's surrendering to him. Well,
how can I tell if I've surrendered to God? How can I tell? Well,
here's how you tell. Do you agree with God's terms
of surrender? See, if I've surrendered, I agree with God. I agree with
his terms of surrender and I quit. I quit trying to do anything
by my works to make myself more pleasing to God, more acceptable
to God, to make myself easier to save. I quit all those things
and I turn away from them. I count those things but done.
So I trust Christ alone. That's surrendering to Christ.
And there's peace with God. There's peace with God. There's
peace in the heart. by trusting Christ alone. By
trusting that the Lord Jesus Christ has done everything God
requires of me. There's peace. He just takes all the pressure
off, doesn't He? There's peace. And the blood of Christ has made
God not angry anymore. Because it took that sin away.
Now you come to God begging for salvation. You surrender. You
beg God for mercy. You surrender on His terms. If you do that, you'll have peace
with God. And that's just exactly what
you'll do. I can preach to you till I'm blue in the face, till
I'm dead and gone, however long that is. But I can tell you exactly
when you'll surrender and come to God begging for mercy, when
the blood of Christ is applied to your heart. And he's going
to do that through the preaching of Christ to him crucified. And
I'm determined to keep doing it as long as the Lord lets me,
because that's how God is going to save his people. All right,
number two. Christ has reconciled his people
to God. Verse 20, and having made peace
through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things
unto himself, by him I say, whether they be things in earth or things
in heaven. Now this word reconcile, it means
to bring back together in a state of harmony. Now, if we have to
be brought back together in a state of harmony, that tells me there's
been a separation. If two people have to be reconciled,
something's happened to make them separate. There's been such
a disagreement. There's been such animosity.
They have to separate. Something has divided them to
where they cannot have fellowship anymore. And if you look over
in Isaiah chapter 59, I could quote this to you, but I want
you to see it in God's word, your own self. Here's what's
happened to cause us to be separated from God. Here's what's brought
about this need that we must be reconciled to God. It's our
sin, our sin. Isaiah 59 verse two. But your iniquities have separated
between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from
you that he will not hear. Now notice the prophet here says,
It's your iniquity and your sins that have caused this separation.
Now all of us need to apply this to ourselves. It's not Adam's
sin separating me from God. It's not living amongst the people
like you're all sin separating me from God. It's not like I'm
living amongst all you sinners and God won't look at me because
he won't look at you. It's my sin. It's my sin. I'm telling you, God will never
save anybody until sin is their fault. God will never save me
till my sin is my fault. It's not Adam's fault. It's not
my parents' fault. It's not my environment's fault.
It's my fault. Our sin has separated us from
God. God won't look on us. God won't
hear us because God's holy. He cannot, God cannot have fellowship
with sin anymore than like in that fellowship with darkness.
It's impossible for the two exist at the same time. Can two walk
together except they be agreed? No, no. God can't agree with
us in our sin. God can't have fellowship with
us in our sin. And you know what? Our sin nature
doesn't want to have fellowship with God either. No, we want
to have fellowship with the God of our imagination, but not the
God of the Bible. We're not going to have God's way of salvation.
We're not going to have God's way of righteousness. And by
nature, we'll never bow to God's authority over us. There's a
divide here. There's a divide. This separation
is caused by such a great divide that man can't cross it. Man
won't cross it, and man doesn't have the ability to cross it. But God can. If you're still
there in Isaiah 59, look at verse one. Oh, this divide is great,
but ye behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot
save, neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear. God can cross this great divide
and reconcile his people to himself. Now again, think about how this
goes normally between human beings, just like there's peace. The
side that's losing the war has got to beg for peace, don't they?
If two people are divided, one of them's done something wrong,
caused a division between the two of them. Well, the person
who did wrong has got to come apologize. If they're going to
be reconciled, the person who did wrong has got to come and
say, I'm sorry. I did wrong. I should have done
that. I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry. I beg your forgiveness. The person who did wrong has
got to sue for forgiveness. Beg for forgiveness before there
can be reconciliation, right? Well, in the case of us and God,
in the case of God and sinners, it's us who did wrong. We're
the ones who've sinned against God. God sent His gospel to us.
We refuse to obey Him. We refuse to bow to Christ. It's
me who cried, crucify Him and give me Brabus. It's me that
did that. I don't want this man to reign
over me. That's what I cry. Get rid of him. I don't want
him. I don't want to bow to him. It's me who's refused to give
up my works of righteousness and submit to the righteousness
of Christ. I'm the one who's at fault. And
that's true of all of us. The fault is us sinners. Yet,
even though it's our fault, by nature, this just shows you how
dead and rebellious our nature is. We cannot and we will not
come to Christ that we might have life. We will not do it
by nature. We were the ones who did wrong.
Yet by nature, we refuse to beg God for mercy. We refuse to beg
him to forgive our sins. We just refuse to submit to him. You just try to get somebody
submit to you. Think how it is to submit to God. We will not
do it. Just will not. So if there's
going to be reconciliation, you know what God did? God, who is
the offended party, had to make the first move. He had to be
the one to come and make reconciliation for His people. The people who
wronged Him, the people who sinned against Him, He's the one who
had to make the first move. Now just try to think how amazing
that that is, that God would do that. If you and I find ourselves
in that situation, we'll never do that. Somebody's wronged me,
I will never go apologize to them. They're the ones that,
they gotta make the first move. That's what we think, isn't it?
Yet God sent his son, he humiliated his son to be clothed in human
flesh, to become a human being. to be born of a woman, to become
an embryo in the womb of the virgin and to be born as a helpless
baby who was completely dependent on his mother to take care of
him. Who got the milk in her breast,
who got the energy in her body, who got the intelligence in her
mind to keep this baby safe all from him, yet he had to become
dependent on her. And he grew up under the rule
of his mother and his foster father He's God Almighty with the wisdom
of God. Yet he submitted the rule of
his creatures. I mean, how he humiliated himself. He put himself
under the obedience of his own law. You know, normally when
a king makes up rules, the prince don't have to keep the law, does
he? That don't apply to the prince. God's son came, put himself in
subjection to his own law and kept it perfect. He willingly
went to the tree to bear the sin of His people in His own
body. The Holy Son of God agreed to
be made sin. You and I cannot imagine how
horrible that was to His nature. And life Himself gave up the
ghost and died. Because that's what the law required. Death for sin. You know why He
did that? He went to that extreme. So that
God could be reconciled to Alexi and me. My goodness. Christ came to do something for
God. So that God could be reconciled
to his people. He put away the sin. It's our
sin that caused this great gulf. He took the sin away. Now there's
no more gulf. God can be reconciled to his
people. Christ came to make his people
what God loves. so that God will accept them
and they'll be reconciled. Now we know that Christ did not
come to die for every son of Adam. I know that. That's just
as plain from scripture as it can be. There would be no hell
if Christ came to die for everybody. If Christ died for everybody,
nobody would be in hell. There'd be no reason for hell if Christ came
to die for everybody. He didn't come to die for every
son of Adam. And this is what I want to know and I want you
to know. How do I know if Christ came to reconcile me to God?
How do I know if Christ came to die for me? I want you to
know. How do you know if Christ came to reconcile you to God?
How do you know if Christ died for you? Well, here it is, who
Christ came to reconcile. Genuine sinners. Back in our
text, Colossians 1, verse 21. And you, and even you, that were
sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works,
yet now hath he reconciled. See, Christ didn't come to reconcile
people who would make the first move toward him. No, Christ came
to reconcile his enemies, his enemies, people who were alienated
from God, who are separated from God, people who are wicked and
vile. That's, I mean, genuine real
life sinners, that's who Christ came to reconcile. And that's
the only people who can be reconciled to God. It's genuine sinners
who need Christ to do all the saving. See, if they can do some
and Christ can do some, this is a cooperative effort between
me and Jesus, you can't be reconciled to God. The only people who can
be reconciled to God are those who are wicked. They don't have
any good works. They can't help Christ save them.
They have no good works of their own. Everything that they do
is evil. They cannot bring themselves
back to God because they're dead. They can't move a muscle. They
can't do anything. They can't cross that gulf. Christ has to
do it all for them. Those people, they're wicked.
They're vile. They have no hope but Christ.
Those people will trust them. They'll trust Christ to save
them. And they'll love him. They'll love that he does all
of the saving. They'll love Christ so much because they see everything
that He did, everything that He endured to put away their
sin, seeing Him sacrifice for them, it just breaks their heart. Our Lord said, if I be lifted
up from the earth will draw all unto me. Who's the all? It's
all of God's elect. It's all who see Him. It's all
who believe Him. When I see Christ lifted up on the curse tree for
me, that breaks my heart. That makes me love Him and that
makes me want to be reconciled. It makes me run to Him and be
reconciled. See, it's the sacrifice of Christ
that reconciled God to His people and His people to God. All right,
here's the third thing. I've mentioned it several times
already. All of this has happened. This peace and reconciliation
can only happen by the sacrifice of God's Son. Verse 22, even
you have to be reconciled in the body of His flesh through
death to present you wholly unblameable and unapprovable in his sight. The only way God can ever be
merciful to a sinner is if his justice is satisfied first. Has to be. God can never compromise
his holiness in order to be gracious. God can never violate his justice
in order to be merciful. Sin has got to be paid for before
God can be merciful to a sinner. Well, the same way God can't
be reconciled to a sinner in their sin. Their sin's got to
be paid for. Their sin has got to be put away.
So Christ came, he reconciled his people to God by satisfying
justice, by putting the sin of his people away. Now, I guess
you could say it would be merciful if the Lord signed an executive
order and pardoned your sin. I guess you could say that would
be merciful. Even though we're still guilty,
Lord, just sign executive order. Say you go free. Brother Walter
Groover used to call that diplomatic immunity. You're guilty, I just
can't punish you. I just won't punish you. It's
diplomatic immunity. But a holy God can't do that. He can't do
that. So the father made his son to
be guilty of the sin of his people. The Lord Jesus Christ took the
sin of His own people in His body on the tree, those people
that He loved. Their names were on His breastplate.
Their names were on His heart. He loved those people. That's
what moved Him to take their sin, make it His own sin, and
made Him suffer and die to put that sin away. And I'm here to
tell you, that sin is gone. It's gone, it's put away under
the blood of Christ. It does not exist. That's why
God can be reconciled to sinners. Sins cause the gap. Well, the
gap's gone when sin's gone. That's how God can be reconciled
to a sinner. The blood of Christ took away
any reason that God would be separated from His people. He
took their sin away. Now, someone will say, well,
That's just a legal transaction between the father and the son.
That's not really the way we are. I mean, really, my sin's
not put away. I mean, I know it will be someday.
I'll be without sin someday, but my sin's not really been
put away yet. I mean, because that's all I
still yet do is sin, you know. I beg your pardon. I beg your
pardon. If sin is not truly gone, God
cannot be reconciled. He cannot. God's not play acting
here. No, he can't do that. The sin of God's elect is truly
gone. It's gone. Want me to prove it
to you? Look what Scripture calls those
people for whom Christ died. Holy. Holy. Unblameable and unapprovable
in God's sight. Or someone's going to say, I
don't see that. I don't see that. I look at myself. I don't see
that. I look at myself. I don't see any holiness. I sure
hope you don't. I sure hope you don't. I look
at myself. I see a lot of reasons somebody
could blame me. I'm approvable. That's for sure.
I just don't see it, so it can't be so. See what the apostle says
here? Holy, unblameable, unapprovable.
In whose sight? Yours? No. Mine? No. Your friends and family?
in his sight, in God's sight. Let me tell you something. The
way God sees it is the way it really is. It's the way it really
is. Christ reconciled genuine sinners
to God and he reconciled God to genuine sinners. Sinners by
birth, sinners by choice, sinners by practice. That's what we are.
No denying it. I'm not denying that we're sinners.
I'm not saying after we leave Christ We start sinning less
and we actually do holy, righteous. No, all we do is sin in this
flesh. That's all we can produce. I'm
saying the death of Christ has made God people holy, holy. The word means sinless. They're
unblameable. They can't be blamed for any
sin because they're spotless. They're unapprovable. They're
innocent. They can't be charged with anything
because it's all been charged to Christ and he put it away.
See, those are the only kind of people that God could be reconciled
to. God can't have fellowship with somebody in their sin, so
Christ made them holy. God can't have fellowship. He can't be
united to somebody that can be blamed for their sin, so Christ
made them unblameable. God can't have fellowship with
somebody that could later on be charged with any sin, so Christ
made them unapprovable. Christ made his people what God
loves, what God can have fellowship with. And I know God's elect
are still in the flesh. There's some out there right
now who God chose, God loved, Christ died for them, but they're
still enemies of God by their wicked nature. Well, what's God
going to do with them? Same thing God did with you who
believe. He's going to send them a preacher. He's going to cross
their path with the gospel. And the Holy Spirit is going
to move in power and make them hear. Make them see. Make them see that Christ was
crucified for them. And when they see that by faith,
you know what they're going to do? They're going to quit trusting their
works and start trusting Christ. That's what they're going to
do. The Holy Spirit's going to do it. And they're going to love
Christ so much, they're going to run to Him. They're going
to be reconciled to Him. And it's all because of Him.
It's all because of His sacrifice. The sacrifice of Christ does
something for God. It lets God be reconciled to
the sinner. And it does something for the
sinner, too. it gives them a new nature that's reconciled to God.
It's all because of the sacrifice of Christ. We can talk about religious theory
and religious words and religious catchphrases all we want, but
I'm telling you there's no gospel without the blood of the sacrifice
of Christ. You cannot preach the gospel
without preaching Christ and Him crucified. And that's not
just saying Christ died on the cross. Everybody knows Jesus
died on the cross. Everybody knows that. Christ
and him crucified means this. Why did he die? Why was Christ
crucified? Because he's made sin for his
people. What did he accomplish in his death? He made his people
holy, unblameable, and unapprovable in God's sight. And that's why
God's reconciled to him. All right, now here's the fourth
thing. And I always kind of like to think of things, you know,
this way. How does this directly affect
me? You know, I don't just, I don't like, I don't want to, just like
I told you in the class this morning, I don't want to read
these, like the parables and the stories of the Jews and think,
you know, that awful nation Israel, you know, how horrible, you know,
how does this directly affect me? You know, what's this teaching
me? I mean, I don't want to follow the same tribe Israel did, do
you? How does this affect me? What am I supposed to learn by
this? Well, here's my fourth point. I see from scripture who
Christ is. Oh, he's God. He's the king.
He's the creator. He's the redeemer. Oh, I see
what he's done. And by his unimaginable sacrifice
for his people, he saved his people from their sins. Any honest
reading of the word of God tells me that. I see that. But this is what I need to know.
How do I know if Christ did this for me? I want you to know this. How do you know if Christ did
this for you? Well, verse 21, Paul says, and you, and you. Christ did this for somebody
specifically. How do I know if this applies to me? How do I
know? Did Christ die for me and reconcile
me to God, make peace with God for me? I mean, how do I know
that? How do I know? Do I really trust
Christ as my Savior? I mean, I see He's the Savior
of sinners. I absolutely, wholeheartedly believe that, but how do I know
if I trust Christ as my Savior? I mean, how do I know? I mean,
do I just like the preacher? I mean, people go places. They
stop going to this place and start going to this place. I
like the preacher, you know? This is really the only place
I've ever gone to church. You know, I kind of don't like
change, and so I just don't leave. How do I know that's not why
I'm staying? Do I believe Christ? That's a fair question. How do
I know if coming here is just habit for me? Well, we've got
our habits, don't we? I don't like getting out of my
habits. How do I know this is habit for me? Or if I'm coming
here because I really believe Christ, I need to hear of Him.
How do I know that? Here's how you can tell. If you
trust Christ, You trust Him as your Savior. You're united to
Him by faith. You're going to continue trusting
Him. Verse 23, if you continue in
the faith, grounded and settled and be not moved away from the
hope of the gospel, which you've heard and which was preached
to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I, Paul, have
made a minister. This gospel is preached to every
creature which is under heaven. Some of them believe it, some
of them don't. Some stay a little while, some say, I believe it,
then they don't. Some of them continue, grounded and settled
in the faith. Believers believe. That's the
nature of a believer. That's why they're called a believer,
because believers believe. They believe Christ. They trust
Christ. They believe Him to be all of their salvation, and they
keep believing Christ is all. They keep believing that Christ
has done it all. I never graduate to the point
that I can do some of it now. No, Christ is always my all.
They keep believing. They believe the gospel and they
keep believing. They don't get itch in the ears
and try this for a while and try this for a while and try
this for a while. They continue depending on Christ
alone because the message of Christ is all they need. They
don't need anything else. Now, this continuing in the faith
is the evidence of salvation. It's the evidence of faith. It's
not the cause of it. It's the evidence of it. You
know, it's kind of like a if then, statement. When, a hundred
years ago, when I first learned about computer programming, I
don't know if they still do this, maybe they have different languages,
but at that time it was a basic language, you know, it was if-then
statement, if-then. Well, it's not you're saved,
that God's done, you know, that God will save you if you continue
in the faith. That's not the if-then statement.
The if-then statement is this. If you continue in the faith,
then Christ died for you. The reason you continue in the
faith is Christ died for you. The reason you continue in the
faith is the Holy Spirit has given you faith in Christ, and
you see Him, and you can't go anywhere else. I mean, you don't
want to. You just don't want to. I'll
tell you the evidence that Christ has saved you. He keeps you saved. You want to know the evidence
grace has saved you? Grace keeps you saved. You want to know the
evidence that faith has saved you? Faith keeps you safe. Faith
keeps you united to Christ. I might not be telling this story
exactly right, but it's a good illustration. A young fellow
came to the pastor and said, he said, I believe the Lord saved
me. He said, what do you think? He
said, stick around about 20 years, I'll tell you. Because faith
continues. That's the evidence. May God
make it so. Let's bow together. Our Father,
oh, how we thank you for this opportunity to meet together
and to worship you. How we thank you for this opportunity
to open your word and to read it and hear it preached. Father,
I pray that you apply your word to our hearts for your glory,
to each and every heart, that we might see the glory of Christ
and apply it to our hearts for our good our learning, our edification,
that we might see the Lord Jesus Christ and rest in Him. How we thank you for such a Savior
who would do something so wonderful, so amazing, so gracious, so powerful to reach to the bottom
of the barrel to save sinful men and women such as we are,
guilty, vile, make us innocent, wash us clean and white in His
blood. Father, how we thank you. All these things we ask for the
glory of Christ our Savior, for the glory of His name we pray.
Amen. All right, Isaac. Stand and sing 272. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground
is sinking sand When darkness veils his lovely face I rest
on his unchanging grace In every high and stormy gale, My anchor
holds within the veil. On Christ the solid rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. His oath, His covenants, His
blood support me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul
gives way, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the
solid rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. Then he shall come with trumpet
sound, O may I then in him be found, Dressed in his righteousness
alone, Faultless to stand before the throne. On Christ the solid
rock I stand All other ground is sinking sand All other ground
is sinking sand