You can tell I've gotten to a
certain age too. I wouldn't need those if I didn't have contacts
to do the job. All right. Well, if you would
open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 14. Matthew chapter 14. Before we begin our lesson, let's
bow together in prayer. Our Father, we bow in your presence
this morning. So thankful that sinful men and
women such as we are could come before your throne of grace in
the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Pleading his obedience
is our righteousness. Pleading his blood is the only
cleansing we have for our sin. We can come before you in the
beloved and call you our father and be heard, be accepted in
him. Father, we thank you. Thank you for your mercy. Thankful
for your Sovereign grace. Father, we pray this morning
that you'd give us a day of true worship. Father, bless us as
we look into your word. Bless us with your spirit. Bless
us with a heart of grace, faith, and ears that hear, that we might
hear of our Lord Jesus Christ and believe on him, rest in him,
learn more of him. Father, we pray you'd be at our
children's classes at this time, that you'd bless them mighty
and special way that you'd use this time to plant the seeds
of faith in the hearts of our young ones. We pray for our upcoming
Bible school that you'd give us a special week, Father, we
pray. Bless the teachers as they prepare,
prepare the hearts of our young ones to be taught the scriptures,
learn more of our Lord and Savior. Father, we pray a blessing for
those who are in deep waters in difficult times. There's so
many, Father, we pray you'd be at the hearts of your people,
that you'd comfort them, that you'd heal, that you'd give a
special portion of your presence, we pray. And all these things
we ask in the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, show us
your glory in him today, we pray. It's in his precious name we
pray and give thanks. I titled our lesson this morning,
Sovereign Grace. We're coming to the end of this
chapter. I was going back and rereading it, reading the verses
leading up to our lesson this morning. And it really stood
out to me how this chapter has so clearly set out for us to
look at, be comforted by, be cheered by the sovereignty of
Christ our Savior. It's all through this chapter.
And I don't know of anything that comforts the hearts of God's
people and gives their hearts assurance more than hearing again
that our God is sovereign. God's sovereignty guarantees
the salvation of his people. Almighty God chose a people to
save and his sovereignty guarantees it's going to happen. If God's
sovereign, nothing can stop his will, can it? God's sovereignty
guarantees that he will comfort the hearts of his people. His
sovereignty, his sovereign power, guarantees he's able to comfort
the hearts of his people. For many of this congregation
right now, that's a special blessing to know he's able. He's got the
power to comfort the hearts of God's people. He's promised to
do it, and he's got the power to do it. He'll do it. God's
sovereignty guarantees that nothing that we do in his service can
fail. Not one thing. Now, it'll appear
to fail to us. I haven't felt like I've been
very successful in much of anything. Have you served in the Lord?
But since God is sovereign, it can't fail. He is working all
things together for good. To them that love God, to them
who are the called according to his purpose, and since God's
sovereign, he overrules even our sin and failure to accomplish
his eternal will. So nothing we do in his service
can ever fail. And you know, we just can't remind
each other of that too often. It's not, it's not just trite
religious words for us to remind each other. Our God's offering.
Whatever it is that's happening to us right now, that's not an
accident. It's not because the world's gone off its rails. It's
not because something is, is, has accidentally happened that
God didn't get, didn't plan for, didn't foresee coming. Our God's
offering. Whatever it is that's happening
to us right now is according to his eternal will and purpose.
He's purposed it somehow for his glory, somehow. And all throughout
this chapter, we've seen God's sovereignty, the sovereignty
of our Savior. This chapter began, remember,
with the death of John the Baptist. John had said earlier in his
ministries recorded in the Gospel of John, he must increase, John
said, but I must decrease. Now John's job as the forerunner
of Christ, being the one to identify Jesus as the Christ, that was
accomplished. He did that. Christ is here.
Now John's got to decrease. He's got to die. And the Savior
now is going to, John's going to die and be out of the way.
And his disciples are not going to be drawn to John anymore.
There's not going to be this conflict. Oh, you know, I'm a
disciple of John the Baptist and I'm the disciple of Jesus
of Nazareth. John's going to die and be out of the way so
that we see Christ is all. He's going to begin to reveal
more and more of his glory as the Sovereign. They killed John
the Baptist and our Lord left that place because of it. Because
of their unbelief, because of their hatred of his prophet,
the Lord left that place. He had a people there, but he
left that place. Now, remember, our Savior is Sovereign. He left
that place. But you know, that didn't stop
his purpose of saving the people in that place. They were in that
city and the Lord left that place. They were in the city where they
had everything that they could need. And they went out to a
desert place to be with the Lord because he drew them there. His
purpose wasn't thwarted. He drew them to him. And out
there in that desert place, that's where he revealed his sovereign
power and glory to the world. That multitude came out there
to that desert place, and the Lord healed people. Must have
been all day long, He was healing people. And at the end of the
day, the multitude was hungry. There's 5,000 men there, not
counting women and children. And the Lord saw them, and He
had compassion on them. A sheep not having a shepherd.
They didn't have a shepherd to protect them. They didn't have
a shepherd to lead them and provide for them. So in his sovereignty
as God, he took a boy's bag lunch and fed 5,000 men, plus women
and children, by creating food. He broke that bread and he broke
that fish. He created food and gave everybody there as much
to eat as they wanted. If you had a big appetite, you
had a lot to eat. If you had a small appetite,
you had a little to eat. But it was enough to satisfy
each person's appetite. And not one bit of food was wasted.
They took up 12 baskets of the fragments that remained. Now
isn't that a picture of redemption that we have in our Lord Jesus
Christ? The Lord Jesus came as a man. God became a man and he
came to establish righteousness for his people and to suffer
and die for a specific, exact, elect people that the father
gave his son to save. And Christ came, he established
righteousness for those people. He died for those people. Christ
died for God's elect and only God's elect. That's so. And he
fully justified all of those people by his obedience to the
law for them and by his sacrifice for them. One man did that. One man. His obedience and his
sacrifice, one man was enough because of who he is. He came
and he died for God's elect. But this is also true. Everybody who wants to be saved
will be saved. They will be. Now, it's not because
they want to and somebody else doesn't want to. You know why
they're gonna want to? You know why a sinner wants to be saved? God, the Holy Spirit, gives them
a new want to. That's why. He works in them and gives them
a new want to. But everybody who wants to be
saved on God's terms will be. Nobody's gonna be in hell and
blame God for it. And nobody's gonna be in hell
for whom Christ died. Not one drop of his precious
blood was wasted. Not one. Then we saw the Lord
send the multitude away. He sent his disciples away, sent
them in a little ship to go across the sea, and he demonstrated
his sovereign power over the weather. They started to cross
that sea, and he sent a storm to them. And it was a bad, violent
storm. That storm beat those disciples. They were experienced sailors
now. They beat them and they tossed them every which way.
They were out there so scared and so alone in the darkness. Oh, just the middle of the night,
it was so dark. They were so scared. They couldn't
see anything. They just couldn't see past the
end of their nose. But the Lord saw the end. The Lord was there
on the shore. He didn't see them as a man. Nobody's eyes could see that
far through all that darkness. He saw them. They couldn't see
him. I just loved that. He saw them
toiling and rowing, it said. And right when they were given
up hope of ever reaching land again, the Lord came to him,
walking on the water. He suspended the laws of nature
and walked on water. And he came to them. and he calmed
the storm and brought them safely to the shore. Now, the Lord did
that. The Lord Jesus did that. This
man is God. He did that in his sovereignty.
He sovereignly sent that storm to them so they learned something
about him. So they learned to trust him
more fully. They believed on him before. They didn't believe
him, they wouldn't be following him. They believed on him before, but now
because of this trial that was so difficult for them, Now they
learn more of the Savior and they confessed of a truth, thou
art a son of God. It's the first time they've said
that because of this trial that he sovereignly sent them. It
was an awful experience, wasn't it? But it was for their good. And the same thing is true of
every trial the Lord sends you. It's for our learning. It's painful,
but it teaches us. Anything that teaches us to learn
to trust our Savior more, It's good for us. Nobody can argue
with that, can they? Now, we're going to see our Lord's
sovereign grace on display. Look at verse 34, Matthew chapter
14. And when they were gone over,
they came into the land of Genesaret. And when the men of that place
had knowledge of him, they sent out into all that country round
about and brought unto him all that were diseased and besought
him that they might only touch the hem of his garment, and as
many as touched were made perfectly whole. Now I see here both the
deity and the humanity of the Lord Jesus. The Savior, our Savior,
is a real man. He's a high priest who can be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He was made flesh. He's touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. He knows what it's like. He knows
what it feels like. He knows what sorrow and pain
and suffering, he knows what that feels like. What is it that
you're going through? He knows what it feels like.
He's been there first. Our shepherd, the good shepherd,
he goes and calls his sheep and leads them out, leads them out.
Every step we take, the shepherd took first. He doesn't send the
sheep out and he follows them, the sheep follow him. He takes
every step we take. He took it first. And he has
compassion on sinners. He knows what it feels like.
That's the humanity of Christ. But there's also the deity of
Christ. His sovereign power is on full display. They brought
him the diseased people. All the diseased people that
they could find in that area, they found and they brought to
the Lord. He healed everyone of them. There
wasn't one case too hard for him. He ever been to the doctor
and showed him something, told him something was wrong, and
the doctor said, I don't know. I don't know what that is. The
Lord didn't do that. Every case. That's his power. Now look back at Isaiah chapter
35. This was just no random event that happened. When the Lord
healed these people, he was fulfilling the prophecy of the Messiah. God told us years and hundreds
of years before Christ came that this is what the Savior would
do. Here's how you can identify. Isaiah 35, verse three. Strengthen ye the weak hands,
confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful
heart, be strong. Fear not, behold, your God will
come with vengeance. Even God with a recompense, he
will come. and save you. Then the eyes of
the blind shall be open, and the ears of the deaf shall be
unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as in heart, and the
tongue of the dumb sing. For in the wilderness shall waters
break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground
shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.
In the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass
with reeds and rushes. And here in this desert place,
The Lord made these streams of his grace flow out. He healed all that were diseased.
And that's such a good picture of salvation. We need a savior
who's both God and man. God became a man. He became incarnate. He became
an embryo in Mary's womb and was born a real baby. She had, Mary had to take care
of him just like you take care of man. I mean, can you imagine
such a thing? That's almighty God. Became a
man, became a real human being. And he had to do that in order
for you and me to be saved. We've got to have a representative
in our flesh, in our nature to do for us what we cannot do.
We need a rep. We had a representative once,
Adam, first man God created, and he ruined us, didn't he?
He ruined us by his disobedience. We need another representative,
a man in our flesh and our nature, just like Adam was, to obey God
and to make us righteous, just like Adam made us unrighteous.
That's why Christ came as a man, to be the representative of his
people. And as a man, he has compassion on our infirmities.
Not only did he obey the law and make his people righteous,
he has compassion on us in all of our weaknesses, in all of
our infirmities. but the Savior's also God. The
Savior whom we worship is God. We approach him reverently and
carefully. We take his name on our lips
carefully and reverently. He's God. And since he's God,
he has the holiness of God, the righteousness of God, the only
righteousness that there is, that only God can have. And he
has power. He has righteousness to make
his people righteous, And he has the divine power, power that
only God could have to put sin away, to put it away. Often when
scripture talks about the atonement, you know what it refers to? Healing,
healing, spiritual healing. The Lord Jesus Christ has the
power to heal all of our spiritual wounds and bruises and putrefying
sores. Salvation from sin. is a healing. It's not only a legal transaction. There is a legal transaction
that had to take place between the father and the son. Payment
must be made. He must die. There's a legal
transaction that happened there. Oh, but salvation is much more
than that, isn't it? Much more. Salvation is a healing. Healing
of all of our sin sicknesses. Salvation is life-giving. It's
soothing to the soul. You who believe in it, it's just
soothing to your heart to hear his name, to hear the name of
the one who loved you and sacrificed himself to cleanse you from your
sin. It's soothing, it's life-giving and it's soothing, it's healing.
And when the Lord Jesus put away the sin of his people, he healed
all of their spiritual diseases. And when he did that, he did
more than just lay his hands on them or even just speak to
them and say, be healed. It took more than that to make
his people whole. In order to make his people whole
and heal them of their sin sicknesses, the Savior had to take the disease,
had to take the sin, had to take the filth of his people into
his own body on the tree. And he traded them his health.
He traded them his perfect righteousness, and he suffered and died to put
that sin away. Now, if that's not grace, I don't
know what is. Can you imagine anybody else
doing that for the likes of you and me? Only the Savior. And if you and I would be healed
of our sin sicknesses, there's a few key words here that tells
us how it is that the Lord saves his people by his sovereign grace. Here's the first word, knowledge. Verse 35 says, and when the men
of that place had knowledge of him. Now, how did they have knowledge
of the Lord? How did they know who he was?
How did they know that if he brought all these diseased people
to him, that he would heal them and he could heal them? How'd
they know that? They had knowledge of him. Somebody
had to tell him, didn't they? Somebody went ahead and told,
just like John was the forerunner. Somebody went to this place and
told them about the Savior. They had knowledge of Him. Somebody
told them, Jesus of Nazareth, He's got power. He's got power
to heal people. He's got power to create food. That was such good news. They
just had to go tell people. How could they not? This is good
news. I want to tell it. He's who we need. They had knowledge
of Him. They didn't have knowledge of
how He did it. that knowledge of him, that he's
able, that he's willing. And isn't that a picture of preaching
the gospel? Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. Now that's such good news. How
can we not tell it? Oh, it is such good news. The
Lord Jesus Christ actually has the power to put sin away and
give life to dead sinners. I could stand here and tell dead
sinners, dead sinners who cannot hear, who cannot believe, who
cannot come to Christ. I stand here week after week
after week and tell dead sinners, believe and come to Christ. Christ
has such power. He makes the dead hear. He makes
the faithless believe. He makes the lame to walk and
come to Christ. He's got the power to do that.
That's such good news. How can we not tell it? He is
exactly what we need. He's the Savior that we need.
And the only way anybody can have knowledge of who Christ
is and how God saves sinners is if somebody dares to preach
Him. Preach Him. Look at Romans chapter
10. That's the only way anybody's gonna have, I mean, doesn't that
just make sense? The only way anybody's gonna have knowledge
of Him is if somebody tells us who He is. Can't believe on somebody
you don't know. Can't believe on somebody you've
never heard of. Romans 10 verse 13. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. And how then shall they
call on him in whom they've not believed? And how shall they
believe in him of whom they've not heard? And how shall they
hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? As it's written, this tells you
what the good news of the gospel is. And why is it such good news? How beautiful are the feet of
them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings
of good things. Oh, it's such a blessing that
God gives us somebody to come and tell us who Christ is because
we can't believe on him unless somebody tells us who he is.
All right, the second word, first word is knowledge. The second
word is sent. They sent out into all that country roundabout. Now this word sent, it means
called, but I thought this was very interesting. It also means
this. It means to send to a place appointed. They called them to
a specific appointed place. These people who had knowledge
of Christ, they called people. They called all the diseased
people to a specific place, to a specific person. You come to
Christ. Are you in need? unto Christ.
They call it into a specific place. And that's exactly what
we do when we preach the gospel. We don't just call men to Jesus
now. It's a specific Savior. It's a specific Lord Jesus. It's
the Savior of this Bible. Not the one we made up in our
imagination. Not somebody that has been made up by different
denominations, but the specific Savior. The Savior declared in
this book. It's not going to do any good
for you to believe on Jesus that you made up or somebody else
made up or this guy made up or what this person thinks he is.
You must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ of this book. It's
called to a specific savior, specific. And we command, we
command all men everywhere come to Christ. Come to Christ, believe
on Him. Come to Him and bow to Him. He's
the sovereign, bow to Him. Come to Him and beg Him for mercy. We do that because that's what
God told us to do. God said, look unto me and be ye saved.
All the ends of the earth. For I'm God and there is none
else. Wherever you find a sinner, God's
able to save them. He said, look. He said, come. And that's what we do too. We
preach the gospel. We command everyone to come to Christ and
believe on Him. And you know who will come? You
know who will come? God's elect. They'll come. They'll
come because the Spirit draws them to Christ. But how can we tell they're God's
elect? I mean, they don't have a sign on their head. I mean,
they don't have a mark on their forehead. How can you tell that
you're one of God's elect? How can you tell? God's elect
are sinners who need a Savior. They come to Christ. That's the
only evidence we ever have that we're one of God's elect. We
believe Christ. That's the only evidence. So that brings me to
the third word, diseased. Verse 35 says, they sent out
into all that country round about and brought unto him all that
were diseased. And that word means that, you
know, someone who's diseased, who's sick, but it has a deeper
meaning than that. It means miserable. Their sickness,
their disease, their condition made them miserable. And that
gave them a need. Now, many people heard they went
into all that region roundabout calling people, but the only
ones who came were the ones who were diseased, who were miserable. And notice here, they brought
unto him all that were diseased. Nobody that was miserable, nobody
that had a need said, nope, I'm not coming. Nobody said, you
know, I'm going to try Dr. Law. I'm going to try Dr. Morality. I'm going to try Dr. Religious Ceremony. No. All the
organisms, everyone who had a need came to Christ and he healed
them. He healed every one of them.
And the same thing is true in salvation. All who are sinners
come to Christ. All of them. Everyone that God
ever makes to see their sin, they all come to the Savior because
they're miserable. They're miserable without Him.
They must come to Him. All that God has chosen, all
that God has appointed, come to appointed person and an appointed
place to hear an appointed gospel. And they believe. By God's sovereign
grace, he makes them believe. God first makes them see their
need, and then they're gonna come to the remedy, aren't they? All who were diseased came. And
the fourth word is besought, and they besought him. Now, the
word means begged. It means entreated and begged.
Now, all, all who were diseased came to the Savior. and they
all begged the Lord to heal them. Nobody sent out this call begging
people to let Jesus save them, did they? They didn't send out
this call and say, now, won't you let Jesus heal you? They
didn't say that. See, that's not the relationship
a sinner has with the Savior. That's not the relationship that
the miserable have with God. They came, the miserable came.
and they begged the Lord to heal them. Now I know this, this is
one of the things I can't be any more sure about this. The
Lord's going to save all of his elect people. Not one of them
is gonna perish. I know that. But I also know
this, that doesn't make God's people proud and arrogant because
not one single solitary person is ever going to be saved, is
ever going to be given faith, is ever going to be forgiven
until they come and they beg God for mercy. Nobody's going
to be forgiven until they come and beg God to forgive them. And they're going to beg. I mean,
they're going to truly beg because God's people, when they come
to Christ, they come knowing this. God does not have to have
mercy on me. You know, just because scripture
says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. That doesn't mean if I call on the name of the Lord, he has
to save me. No, we come to Christ. We come to the Lord, begging
for mercy, knowing if he sends me to hell, he's right. I can't
argue, can't argue with him a bit. So I'm begging him for mercy. Nobody will be saved till they
do. And here is the evidence of our spiritual deadness. There's
a Savior. We will save everyone that begs
Him. Our nature won't let us beg.
Our fallen nature is so depraved, so dead, so rebellious, we will
never beg God like that. But the Lord, in His sovereign
power, makes all of His people to see their helplessness, to
see how miserable they are, to see their need of a Savior, and
makes them so that they'll beg Him for mercy. and forgiveness. He's purposed to give them mercy.
He's purposed to forgive their sin. He's purposed to save them.
He's also going to make them beg before he does. They besought
him. And the fifth word is him. They
besought him. They begged him that he would
allow them to only touch the hem of his garment. Now doesn't
that show humility? They begged him. Would you let
me bow down in front of you and touch the hem of your garment.
They begged him, would you let me get down in the dust at your
feet and touch the hem of your garment? Now, why'd they do that? Why do they bow down to him and
touch the hem of his garment in faith, believing if I do that,
I'll be healed? Why'd they do that? Remember that woman with the
issue of blood? You reckon She went and told people what happened
to her. But she went and told people, I crawled up behind the
Lord. I crawled up behind him, knowing
if I just touched the hem of his garment, I'll be made whole.
And you know, when I touched it, I was, I was immediately,
I felt it in my body. I was immediately healed. And
he turned to me and said, who touched me? And she finally told
him it was me. And you know what he called me?
He didn't call me a usurper. He didn't say you don't belong
here. He didn't say what, what gives you the right to do, you
know what he called? He said, daughter. Oh, your faith has made you whole.
She told people about that. That crowd around the Lord, when
the Lord said, who touched me? And the disciples said, Lord,
a hundred people are touching you. Everybody here's wanting
to touch you, just pressing up against you, just getting closer
to you. How can you say who touched me? He said, somebody touched
me. All those people. They saw that happen. They saw
the Lord deal with this woman. They knew her. They knew how
she's been sick for years. Everybody knew. She'd been to
all the doctors. This is common knowledge. And they saw her healed.
They told people. Other people who had no hope
of a cure thought, how can He do that for me? Lord, can I touch
the hem of the garment? No. It's humility. It's bowing before the Sovereign
to touch His garment. David said, this poor man cried,
and Lord have mercy on me. Now you cry, you poor man, poor
woman, miserable. Call on the Lord, bow to him
in humility, touch his garment, and he'll make you whole. So
here's the sixth word, perfectly. As many as touched were made
perfectly whole. Now all who were diseased, everyone,
came to the Lord was made perfectly whole. There were no side effects.
There was no partial healings. They were made perfectly whole.
And that salvation in Christ is being made perfectly whole,
perfectly righteous, perfectly justified, perfectly, eternally
sanctified, completely and eternally saved from all of their sin. Now that is the sovereign savior
of sinners. And I tell you one more time, don't go and bless that to your
heart.