Bill, good morning. It is a great blessing to me
to see all your smiling faces. 14 months, I've longed for that
and I'm thankful. If you would open your Bibles
with me to the book of 1 Timothy, chapter 6. We'll begin our reading in verse
13 of 1 Timothy chapter 6. I give thee charge in the sight
of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who
before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, that thou
keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable until the appearing
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in his times he shall show he
was the blessed and only potentate the King of Kings and Lord of
Lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no
man can approach unto, whom no man has seen nor can see, to
whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen. That'll serve as our text
this morning. And after we sing a couple songs,
Brother Wayne's going to come and read scripture and lead us
in prayer. Let me make just a couple of comments, I think everyone
got my message from earlier this week that we are under, according
to the new CDC guidelines, masks are optional. And if you want
to wear one, if you want to wear one till kingdom come, I don't
care. None of us, nobody here is going
to care if it makes you more comfortable or feel more protected.
By all means, wear it forever. We don't care. As long as you
come here and we worship together, nobody will care a bit. We were
talking earlier, the flu and some other things are down so
much this year because everybody's wearing masks. Who cares? Who cares? Let's just worship
together. In light of these new guidelines, I'll just tell you
now, I'm going to be at the door after the service. I just can't
even tell you how much I've missed that. I don't get a chance to
talk to everybody. So if you don't want a handshake,
you want to stay at arm's length, you want to hurt my feelings
a bit, and if you want We will, but I want to be able to talk
to everybody and see you and greet you. So I plan on doing
that. And Lord willing, next week,
I'll have a bulletin of the call to worship. I've been emailing
the bulletin out, and I already had one done this week without
the call to worship. I just didn't have time to do
another bulletin. So we'll start that again, Lord
willing, next Sunday. So Sean's going to come and lead
us. We're going to stand and sing.
I don't think I have to tell you, but sing out. But let's let it ring. Let's
let it ring. Alright, Sean. If you would, please stand and
turn to song number one, O Worship the King. O worship the King, all glorious
above, and gratefully sing his power and his love. Our shield and defender, the
Ancient of Days, pavilioned in splendor and girded with praise. O tell of his might, O sing of
his grace, Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space, His
chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form, And dark is his path on
the wings of the storm. Thy bountiful care, what tongue
can recite? It breathes in the air, and shines
in the light. It streams from the hills, it
descends to the plain, And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain. Frail children of dust, and feeble
as frail, In thee do we trust, nor find thee to fail. Thy mercies, how tender, how
firm to the end, Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend. You may be seated. If you would, please turn to
song number 34, Immortal Invisible. Immortal, invisible, God only
wise, Enlightened, accessible, give from our eyes. Most blessed, most glorious,
the Ancient of Days, Almighty, victorious, thy great name we
praise. Unresting, unhasting, and silent
as light, Nor wanting, nor wasting, Thou rulest in might. Thy justice like mountains, high
soaring above, Thy clouds which are fountains of goodness and
love. To all life Thou givest to both
great and small, In all life Thou livest the true life of
all. We blossom and flourish as leaves
on the tree, And wither and perish, but not changeth thee. Great Father of glory, pure Father
of light, Thine angels adore Thee, all vail in their sight. All praise we would render, O
help us to see It is only the splendor of white hideth thee. If you would please open your
Bibles to Isaiah chapter 45. Begin reading in verse one of
Isaiah chapter 45. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before
him, and I will loose the loins of kings open before him the
two gate to leave gates and the gates shall not be shut. I will
go before the to make the crooked places straight. I will break
in pieces the gates of brass and cut and sunder the bars of
iron. And I will give thee the treasures of darkness and hidden
riches of secret places that thou mayest know that I, the
Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. For
Jacob, my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect. I have even
called thee by thy name. I have surnamed thee, though
thou hast not known me. I am the Lord, and there is none
else. There is no God beside me. I girded thee, though thou
hast not known me, that they may know from the rising of the
sun and from the west that there is none beside me. I am the Lord,
and there is none else. I form the light. and create
darkness. I make peace and create evil.
I, the Lord, do all these things. Drop down ye heavens from above
and let the skies pour down righteousness. Let the earth open and let them
bring forth salvation and let righteousness spring up together.
I, the Lord, have created it. Woe unto him that striveth with
his maker. Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth.
Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? For thy work he hath no hands.
Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou?
Or to the woman, what hast thou brought forth? Thus saith the
Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things
to come concerning my sons, Concerning the work of my hands, command
ye me. I have made the earth and created
man upon it. I, even my hands have stretched
out the heavens and all their hosts have I commanded. Wonder
reading there. Let's look to the Lord in prayer. Our great God, holy, heavenly
father, we will bow before you this morning knowing that by
your word, by your speaking, that you brought all this into
existence. What power you have, Father, we thank you for this
place that you've given us to come and open and read your scriptures. Thank you for being able to come
in the fashion that we can today without the mask if we so choose.
Thank you for bringing us through this pandemic thus far. We ask
that you Continue to let the situation improve in this country
and in the world. But this morning, Father, we
ask for a true hour of worship. Be with us as we sit and listen,
cause us to hear the message. Worship our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. Let us be blessed. through the preaching and reading
of your word this morning. We pray for those that are going
through difficult times, still have treatments and surgeries
and other difficulties to go through. Father, we hold these
people up for you. We ask for your hand in the treatment
and the surgeries to heal them and be a remedy for them. Father, we know that these things
are by your hand We ask that you comfort us through that knowledge.
As we leave here through the service, Father, we ask that
you edge us about. Leave us not alone. Cause us
to seek your will first in all things. Protect us by your protective
hand in mercy and grace. Leave us not alone in the world.
Continue to give us this place where we can come hear the gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ for years to come. Again, Father,
we ask for an hour of worship at this time. Thank you for bringing
us here. Teach us and show us more of
our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and the work that he's done.
These things we ask and pray in Christ's name. Amen. Have thine own way, Lord, have
thine own way. Thou art the potter, I am the
clay. mold me and make me after Thy
will, while I am waiting, yielded and still. Have Thine own way,
Lord, have Thine own way. Search me and try me, Master,
today. Wider than snow, Lord, wash me
just now, As in Thy presence humbly I bow. Have Thine own
way, Lord, have Thine own way, Wounded and weary, help me, I
pray, Power, all power, surely is thine. Touch me and heal me,
Savior divine. Have thine own way, Lord, have
thine own way. Hold, Lord, my being, absolute
sway. Fill with Thy Spirit till all
shall see Christ only, always living in me. There's a verse in that psalm.
I believe I've heard it like I've never heard it before. Wounded and weary. Help me, I
pray. I'm going to use that phrase
a lot. Wounded and weary. Help me, I pray. Alright, open your Bibles with
me if you would. 1 Timothy 6. I titled the message this morning,
The Blessed and Only Potentate. In our text this morning that
I read to open our service, there is a description of our God,
who he is, what his character is like. And if Lord gives us
any light whatsoever, that ought to make us bow in awe and wonder
and worship at the glory of his person. And I pray that's what
we'll be enabled to do this morning, to worship God for who He is.
Now, not just because of what He can do for us, and I certainly
am going to talk about what He has done for His people, but
you know, at the very heart of worship is worshiping God simply
for who He is, simply for who He is. He is so glorious. that there's none like Him. Our
human mind, we preach Him, we read about Him, we sing about
Him, but our God is so glorious. There's just none like Him. We
can't even enter into how glorious He is. But just a little glimpse
of it will let us be able to worship Him. I took my title
from verse 15, which in His times He shall show, who is the blessed
and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, And
there's a few things I want us to see from this passage about
the character of our God. Number one is this. Christ himself
is the blessing. He is the blessed. The blessed. Everything about our God, everything
about his character, everything about what the Lord does is blessed. It's a blessing to his people
that comes from the sovereign, from the potentate. The word
blessed Paul uses here means happy. The Lord makes his people
happy. Even in an unhappy world, even
when there are things that cause us to be unhappy, the believer
has reason to be happy. And the reason is our Savior.
You know, this doesn't mean that the believer doesn't have sorrow.
Of course we have sorrow. Yes, we have sorrow. We sorrow
over sin. We sorrow over the result of
sin. But the believer is happy. Happy
to know Christ. Happy to bow to Him. Happy to
rest in Christ. See, Christ is our blessing.
We think about blessings, we think about the things that the
Lord gives, but Christ is our blessing. He is the blessing. Just like the Lord told Abraham,
I am your exceeding great reward. The Lord could say that to us.
I am thy exceeding great blessing. He is the blessing. Each individual
blessing that we have all comes from our blessed Lord. This word
Paul uses, blessed, is the word that our Lord used in the Beatitudes. Blessed, happy are the poor in
spirit. The Lord's made them poor in
spirit. They're blessed. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed, happy are they that mourn. Those that mourn over
their sin, they're blessed. Their sin will be forgiven. Blessed,
happy are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.
If you hunger after righteousness, The Lord made you that way. He
salted you. He made you thirsty. He made
you hungry. Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst after righteousness. The Lord's going to fill them.
He'll fill them with His righteousness. Blessed, happy are the merciful. They shall obtain mercy. They're
merciful because they have obtained mercy from the Lord. The Lord
made them that way. They're happy. Blessed, happy are the pure in
heart. God's given them a new heart. That's how they have a
pure heart. He's given them a new heart. They're blessed. They're
happy. They shall see God. Oh, they're blessed. Every believer
has that blessing in Christ because of who He is. What He's made
is people. Our Lord said, blessed are your
eyes. Blessed are your ears. Your eyes see. Your ears hear. How'd that happen? How'd that
happen? We're born blind so that we cannot
see. how sinful we are. We cannot
see Christ. We can't see our need of Him.
Do you see that? Blessed are your eyes. Blessed
are your ears that they hear. When you hear the Gospel, does
it thrill your heart? Do you hear of Christ the Savior makes
you cling to Him? Blessed are your ears, they hear.
The Lord gave you eyes to see and ears to hear. You're blessed.
Happy. If you know Christ and you trust
Him, you're blessed. Our Lord told Peter, flesh and
blood didn't reveal that to you. But my Father which is in heaven,
He blessed you. We're happy to have a blessed hope. We have a blessed hope if we
hope in Christ. And that hope is an expectation. It's not like, well, hope will
happen, but I don't know if it will or not. No, this is an expectation. You're blessed if you have this
expectation that Almighty God will do for you what He said
He'd do. You're blessed. Happy. And this blessing in Christ
is so rich. It's so deep. It goes past anything
about this flesh. It'll last a whole lot longer
than this flesh does. In Revelation 14, verse 13, blessed are the
dead. Blessed are the dead. Happy which
die in the Lord. Those who have died in faith. We're always sad when one of
our loved ones, the Lord takes them home. But those who have
died in the faith, they have eternal life. They have life. They are blessed and happy like
you and I can never imagine as long as we're in this world.
Blessed, happy are those who die in the Lord. They have the
fulfillment of everything God promised them. They're with Christ
himself. They're with the blessed one.
Oh, they're blessed. Christ himself is the blessing.
All right, number two, the purity of Christ is a blessing. Now
Paul begins this passage with a charge to Timothy and with
a charge to us. And I always take note of those
things. Paul says, I charge thee. This is a charge to us because
of how glorious our Savior is. It's a charge because of who
he is to continue, continue believing. Do you believe him? Continue
believing him. Do you depend on him? Continue
to depend on him. Have we preached to him in the
past? God help us to keep preaching because he's worthy. Verse 13,
Paul says, I give thee charge in the sight of God who quickeneth
all things and before Christ Jesus, who before upon his pilot
witnessed a good profession, that thou keep this commandment
without spot, unrebukable until the appearing of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, Paul says, Timothy, I charge you, keep this commandment,
the commandment that he's been giving him to preach the gospel.
and to believe it. He said, Timothy, you keep this
commandment that continually you keep teaching men everything
that's gone before in this letter. The commandment he's talking
about here is a general commandment of the gospel, but it's also
everything he's told him so far in this letter. Command people
to believe in Christ and to not put any confidence in the acts
of their flesh, the works of the law. Continue, Timothy, and
Hurricane Road Grace Church, continue to preach the gospel. Continue to believe the gospel,
not the fables of modern religion. Command sinners to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, who came into this world to save sinners,
the chief of sinners, sinners of whom I am chief. Now, you
command sinners to believe on Him. That's what He came to do,
to save them. Command believers to pray for civil authority,
to submit to civil authority. God put them over us for our
good. Command believers to love and to care for one another.
That's something that's necessary in our world. It's just a thing
in the world today. I can't explain it. To be so
harsh, to be so critical, to just pick at one another, divide
over the smallest thing. We must be doctrinally sound.
I'm not talking about compromising the Gospel. I'm not talking about
compromising Christ. And people just like to search
for these things, search for reasons to pick and divide. I'm
talking about believers now. This attitude of the world is
coming to the church. And maybe Scripture, you might
find some obscure Scripture and rest the Scripture to find your
point of view. But one thing in Scripture that's
clear as the noonday sun, we're to love one another. By this
shall all men know that you're my disciples. Not that you pick
and fuss and argue with each other and say, I'm, you know,
more doctrinal and straightness than you. By this, all men know
you're my disciples. That you love one another. Paul
says, Timothy, you command that. Love and care for one another. Command believers to be good
employees and to submit. Even if you're a slave to your
master, Paul says, you submit. And here's why you do all of
that. That's the gospel. and our Savior be not blasphemed."
You command this and you make sure that someone doesn't refuse
to believe on Christ or they don't refuse to come hear the
Gospel that you preach because our actions have cast the Lord
of glory in a bad light. You do these things even if it
costs you. Not for your sake. For His sake.
For the Savior's sake. For the sake of the Gospel. And
Paul says, keep this commandment without spot and be unrebukable. Now, how on earth can a sinner
be without the spot of sin? How can we be unrebukable, like
there's nothing to rebuke us for because we haven't done anything
wrong? How is that possible for sinners like us? By trusting
the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. By trusting Him for everything.
And what a Savior we have. We ought to trust Him. We ought
to trust Him. His obedience to the law as the
representative of His people. A number that no man can number.
The obedience of one man to the law makes all of his people perfectly
righteous. Because his obedience is the
obedience of his people. His sacrifice as the substitute
of his people takes away all the sin of his people and makes
them without spot or wrinkle. Without spot or wrinkle or any
such thing. He makes them perfect. He's taken
away their sin. You can't rebuke them. You can't
rebuke them. There's nothing to rebuke them
for. They have no sin. Christ has made them pure. What a Savior. How can we not
want to trust Him? And let's pray. It's my fervent
prayer. I hope it'll be your prayer too, that the Lord make
us faithful to our generation without spot and unrebukable
in His sight. How do we do that? By keep trusting
Christ. Let's keep trusting Christ. till Christ returns. That's what
Paul means here until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. It
means His second coming. Then we won't need faith, will
we? We'll see Him face to face. But now we need it. Now we need
to continue trusting and believing and relying upon Him. Let's pray
to the Lord. Enable us to do that till Christ
comes. And you know what? We will. We
will. If He keeps us. If He keeps us. And oh, what a blessing! How
happy! God's people will be when Christ
returns to judge the world in righteousness and take His people
home to be with Him. Now, there, we'll be without
spot, won't we? We'll be unrebukable. God's people
are blessed. Oh, we're so blessed. We're happy
now. But there, we'll be blessed. We'll be happy. Without any sorrow
added to it. Without any tears. Without any
heartache. Oh, blessed. Blessed. to be with the Lord
Jesus Christ made just like Him. All right, here's the third thing. The sovereign rule of Christ
is a blessing. He is the blessed and only potentate. No rivals, no other equal to
Him. He's the King of kings and Lord of lords. He's the King
of all earthly kings. He's the Lord of all earthly
lords, all earthly power. That word potentate means mighty.
It means of great authority. Now that's true of our Lord.
He's mighty. He has great authority. But this is not just a position
or a title. Potentate is the Lord's name.
He's ruler by His nature. The Lord is so powerful that
all He has to do to bring to pass His will is will it. Just think it. And it's done.
The Lord's so powerful, He speaks. And it's done. He spoke and creation
appeared. He's so powerful. And the same
thing that happened in the physical creation of this universe, in
this world, you know, that's what happens in the salvation
of God's people. There they are, they're dead, they're void, they're
in darkness without form, without commonness. And the Lord speaks. He says, let there be light in
their heart. And there's light. And they believe. The light appears,
it just appears, and they can't not believe. They have light,
they see Christ, and they can't not see Him. What happened? God
spoke in power. God spoke. When the Lord speaks,
dead sinners live. They have to live. I lost my
place here. Verse 16 says, to whom be honor
and power everlasting. His power is everlasting. It
knows no bounds. It has no end. So when He speaks,
He gives His people eternal life. A life that will never be lost.
Our potentate has the authority over everyone and everything
in His creation. Everything. I mean, you watch
the news like I do. You worry about stuff you see
going on and it aggravates you. You know it shouldn't be that
way. But we need to be constantly reminded of this. Our God is
the only potentate. He's the King of kings and Lord
of lords. And all of this is going on at
His bidding, at His bidding. You know, whether they know it
or not, everyone lives to serve the Lord and do His bidding.
Believer and unbeliever alike. God's people serve Him out of
love and out of thanksgiving. and even the wicked. Somehow
the Lord is overruling their wicked actions and somehow they're
serving the Lord to bring to pass His will. Somehow they are. And I'll give you the perfect
example. Way back there in Egypt. Moses. Gone out there in the
desert. Spent 40 years on the backside
of the mountain. He's crossed the desert and come back to town
again. The prophet Moses. The man of God. Everybody here
knows Moses is serving the Lord, wasn't he? He does this because
thus saith the Lord. Do you know Pharaoh was serving
the Lord too? God said, I raised you up and I show my power in
you. Both of them served the Lord. Pharaoh wickedly to show
God's glory and His justice. Moses to serve God in His mercy,
to show His mercy in redeeming His people, bringing His people
out of captivity and bringing His people to the land that God
promised them a long time ago. Not because they deserved it,
but because God promised it. Both served God's purpose, didn't
they? Same thing's true of everybody.
Everybody's serving the Lord in some way because He's their
potentate. He's their king. He's their ruler.
And it's such a great blessing. You know, human beings can't
handle any kind of what we call sovereign power. Just any time
there's a king, Whether it's in His reign or the reign of
His sons He hands down to them, somebody's going to ruin it.
They use their power to such excess for themselves. Our potentate,
Almighty God, uses His great, unstoppable, unopposable power
to save His people from their sins. To completely remove the
sin of His people and make them white as snow. Now that's a blessing. that the Lord would use His unlimited
power not to crush all of His enemies. If you had unlimited
power, what would you do to all your enemies? God uses His unlimited power,
not to destroy, some He will, but not to destroy all of His
enemies. Some of them He takes and He saves them. He cleanses
them. He gives them a new nature. And
he takes that enemy, that enemy who shook his fist in the face
of God, said, I'll not have this man to rule over me. And God
speaks, and he breaks him. He gives him a new nature, and
he raises him up, sets him at his table. It's one of his sons,
one of his daughters. Oh, that's a blessing. That's
a blessing. And our potentate's power extends
over all earthly powers. He's the king of any earthly
king. He's the Lord over any earthly power. The word means
commander and leader. Our Lord is the commander and
leader over all human authority. And that's why we should obey
Him. Except when they tell us what we can and cannot preach.
Other than that, we ought to obey them. Because our Lord is
the power over them. They get their power and their
authority from God who put them in that position. He knows what
they're doing and He's directing them to accomplish His will.
So even when we don't understand it, just like Pharaoh of old,
the Lord, our potentate, is moving all civil authority for the good
of His church. Somehow. Somehow. He's doing
that to save His people from their sins. And you might wonder,
what about in times past when the church was persecuted by
civil authority? They were so persecuted, people
were having their heads chopped off. They were getting burned
at the stake. What about that? Well, I can't begin to explain
what the Lord's doing when he's doing anything. But I know what
happened in part of that. Every single time that the Lord
lets earthly civil authority oppress the church, every single
time it happens, the church grows and doesn't shrink. Every time. The Lord is behind every movement
of creation, every movement. Now that's too deep for my mind
to grasp, but I can believe the blessing of it, can't you? All
right, here's the fourth thing. The life of Christ is a blessing.
Verse 16, Paul says, who only hath immortality. Now our Lord
has immortality. The word means undying. Our God
is undying. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only man who is undying. Now what a blessing. The immortal
died for dying mortals. The immortal died that dying
mortals might live. That's a blessing. The undying
took the sin of his people and his own body on the tree and
was sacrificed for it and he suffered and died and put that
sin away. You know how I know he put that
sin away? He's undying. He rose again. Death could not
hold him because the sin that had been charged to him was washed
away by his precious blood. Now that's a blessing. Mortals,
dying mortals like you and me have been saved by the life,
by the death, by the resurrection of the immortal, the undying.
You see the immortality of Christ. It means more than that he just
lives forever. The immortality of Christ means
He gives life to whom He will. He is the life of His people.
See, the Lord is undying. He's independent. He has independent
life. You and I have life, don't we?
I mean, here we all are, sitting, breathing, interacting with each
other. We have life. But our life is
completely dependent on God. He could snuff out our next breath
and that's it. Our life is dependent upon Him. But He has independent
life. He has life in himself. And every
other form of life is always dependent on God to give it.
In verse 13, he says, I charge thee in the sight of God who
quickeneth all things. Everything that has life gets
their life from God. God's the one who quickened them.
That's true of bacterial life. That's true of plant life, animal
life and human life. And that's true of spiritual
life. All those different forms of life, the only way we have
it is if God gives it to us, because we're dependent on Him.
And the Lord gives to all of His people this eternal, undying
spiritual life. When God gives His people life,
He gives them His life. His life. Stay with me, I think
this will be a blessing to you. When God gives His people spiritual
life, He gives them His life. He gives them life through union
with Christ so they have His life. They are what He is because
they're connected to Him. The immortal, perfect life of
the Lord Jesus is your life if you believe on it. It is your
life. That's exactly right. If you
believe Christ, when the books are opened in judgment, you know
what the story of your life will be? You can read it. Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John. If you believe Christ, that is
your life. When the Lord Jesus perfectly
obeyed the law, when He perfectly pleased His Father, so did you. When the Lord Jesus died to sin
and He died to justice, so did you. If Christ died for you,
the law and justice isn't looking for you. You already died to
it. Justice is satisfied. You've
already died. That's your life and that's your
death. And when Christ arose, if you believe Him, so did you.
So did you. To die no more. That's your life,
if you believe Christ. What a blessing. Not to have
my life. Not to have my actions and my
disobedience and all my sins and spots and wrinkles. Is rebukability
a word? If not, it is now. I put it in
the dictionary. Rebukability. Not mine. but by untold mercy and grace
to have his life. Oh, my goodness. Oh, bless it. Bless it. In life, life is more
than something that Christ gives his people. It'll help us have
a better understanding of life if we can get a hold of this.
Christ himself is the life of his people. Life is not a state
of being. Life is a person. That's why
Paul said, when Christ, who is our life, when He shall appear,
oh, then we'll appear with Him. Then we'll be made just like
Him. He is our life. And what life we have because
Christ lives. Now, God help us to keep that
hope, to keep hanging upon Him until Christ returns. Because
listen, we have, God's people have spiritual, eternal life
right now. But this mortal must put on immortality. And it will. This mortal will
put on immortality when our immortal Savior appears. See, He lives
to insure it. Now that's a blessing. That's
a blessing. And just like life, the resurrection
is a person. Our Lord told Martha, I am the
resurrection. Now the resurrection will be
an event. But Christ is our, he said, I am the resurrection,
and I am the life. Whoever believes in him shall
never die. They have his life, immortality.
Now that's a blessing, isn't it? All right, here's the fifth
thing. The light of Christ is a blessing.
Verse 16 says, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the
light which no man can approach unto, whom no man has seen nor
can see. That word light, Paul uses, means
brilliant and pure quality. The glory of God is so bright
that we cannot see Him. We can't see Him. Just like if
Christ would appear, you couldn't see the sun anymore because His
glory is so superior to it. You couldn't see the sun. It's brilliant and pure quality. He's just so glorious by nature,
we cannot see Him. Now doesn't that tell you how
blind we are? The light of Christ is so glorious, yet by nature
we can't see Him. We can't. We can't look on God. In the flesh, if we looked on
God, His glory would consume us. That's what Jacob and Manoah
were both afraid of. They said, we've seen God. We're
going to die. Even the angels, the seraphim
who fly around God's throne, They have six wings and they
use two of them to cover their face, to cover their eyes, even
though seraphim cannot look directly on God. See, you and I, by nature,
cannot see God unless God calls us. Unless He calls us to Him
and gives us eyes to see Him. And what a blessing. The Lord
never leaves His people to themselves. to their own smarts, to their
own intelligence, to their own ability to figure things out.
He always calls His people to Christ. And He gives them eyes
of faith to see. See, Christ is the light. Let
me see if I can help us understand what that means. Christ is the
light. Now we can only see if we have light. We can only see
who God is in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you've
seen Christ, you have seen the Father. You have seen. We can
only see ourselves. We can only see and understand
our lost sinful condition only if we have the light of Christ.
That's the only way we can see it. The only way I can see I
need a Savior, that I cannot save myself. The only way I can
see that is by seeing Christ with the eye of faith. He came
into the world to save sinners. The only way I can see that is
by seeing Christ. You know, by nature, we all think
we're pretty good. We think we're pretty good. Of
all the people that I know, man, you're the best. But I'm telling
you this, we'll think we measure up. We think we're good enough.
The only way I can see I don't measure up to God's standard
is by seeing the standard, by seeing Christ. The only way I
can see that I don't measure up is by seeing the perfection
of Christ. The only way we can see how God
saves sinners, how can God save a sinner and still be God? The
only way we can see that is in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. See, this is why people think
that salvation is in my decision or in my morality or in, you
know, all the other things that they think it could be. Me walking
in the aisle or whatever it may be. You know why they think that?
They haven't seen Christ. They haven't seen Him. The only
way I can see how God saves sinners is in the light of the Lord Jesus
Christ. God will not accept the best
that we can do. God will only accept the best
that God can do. I don't care how sincere we are.
God's not going to accept the best we can do. God will only
accept the best that God can do. And you know who that is? The best God can do is the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now look to Him and trust Him.
See, when I see Christ, now I see, oh, now it's obvious. I see how God can be just and
still be merciful to a sinner like me. I see that in Christ. Christ is safe. Christ the substitute
was punished for the sin of God's elect. That's justice. I see
that. That's justice. God fully punished
his son. But thank God that's also mercy.
The Son of God took my place, took your place if you believe
Christ. He took your place so that you could live. Oh, that's
mercy. That's a blessing. That's justice
and mercy. And the only way we can see that
is in the light of Christ. Now, to you who believe, I bet
you're just like me. Many times, don't you wish you
had more light? I do. I want more light, don't
you? I wish I had more light. I wish I could see better. And
there's nothing wrong with that. As long as we look through a
glass darkly, We're going to wish we had more light, aren't
we? But you know what? God in His mercy has given us
plenty of light. He's given us light to see Christ. He's given us somebody to preach
Him so that we believe Him. So we have enough light. Everybody
here has heard the gospel enough. You've got enough light to know
you trust Christ. He's given us enough light to
follow Him. I couldn't follow Him in the
dark, could you? He's given us enough light to follow Him. Now
keep that hope until Christ returns. Because in that day, we're going
to see perfectly. Then, we'll have all the light
in the world. We'll see Him face to face. But
till then, walk in the light God's given you. I promise you
it's enough. It's enough to believe on Christ.
That's all we need, and really, that's all we can handle right
now. God's given us enough. The light of Christ is such a
blessing. Then here's the last thing. The honor of Christ is
a blessing. At the end of verse 16, it says,
to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen. Now, of course, all honor
goes to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's God. So He is to be honored. He is to be honored by our reference
and by our respect. And He deserves to be honored. Doesn't our God? He deserves
for us to honor Him. He's so honorable. He is so honorable. He's so dignified and perfect. And you know, I have known dignified
people in the past. I mean, they're dignified. They do the right thing. They're
just dignified. And a person like that, in a
flash, could tend to kind of look down on other people that
aren't as dignified as them, couldn't they? Our Savior, our
God, our only potentate is dignified. Plus, He's kind. He's merciful and He's gracious
to sinners. See, everything about Him, every
aspect of the character of our God draws our respect and draws
our honor, doesn't it? This word honor, Paul uses, it
means reference and it means respect. But it has a deeper,
richer meaning than that, that it's going to be a blessing to
you. The word means, this word honor, it means the price itself. God's elect, I'm going to tell
you why this is a blessing, the price itself. God's elect are
born with a price on their for their sin and for their rebellion
against God, for their sin nature, for who they are. They're born
under the curse of the law. Adam put us under the curse of
the law and we're born under it. You and I are born, oh, in
God a debt we cannot pay. And you know, we talk about that
debt that Christ has to redeem us, to buy us back. That debt
isn't paid to the devil, like we're sold under sin and under
the law. and the devil's got us and God's got to pay something
to the devil to, you know, to get us out of here. Just like
you could park a ring, go down there to the pawn shop and get
it back. That's not what redemption is. The redemption price for
our sin has to be paid to God, the one who we sinned against,
to appease His anger, to atone for our sin against Him and to
block that sin out so God won't be angry anymore. The only way
God can accept us in peace and in holiness is if the price is
paid. Sin is blotted out. Well, you know, I can't pay the
debt. It's a debt against God. So you know what God did? Now
this is so honorable. This ought to draw our reference.
God came to pay the debt to God. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, came in the flesh as the ransom price itself. See, when it came time to redeem
His people, He didn't get money, gold and silver and corruptible
things. He paid the redemption price Himself by sacrificing
Himself. He sacrificed His life, His body
and His soul to God as an offering for sin. Christ Himself sacrificed
all that He is so that He could atone, blot out and pay for the
sin of all of God's elect. That is how Christ is the ransom
price itself. And he is so honorable and so
glorious. His blood is so precious and
so perfect that when he was sacrificed, the father said, it's enough. It's enough. The debt's owed
to the father. And the father said, it's enough. Then all of his people are redeemed. And you've got enough light from
that statement to rest in Christ. Rest your soul on Him. All it
takes to save a sinner is the Lord Jesus Christ. No more. Don't add anything to Him. And
no less. Don't take anything from Him.
He has all honor. That's the blessedness. There's
all this blessedness that the independent God who we have sinned
against now, would make himself, his own darling son, the ransom
price to pay for the sin of his people and to give them eternal
life. That's blessedness beyond human
words. Blessedness beyond human words.
I hope God will move in special power and cause us as we leave
here this morning to believe Him and to rest in Him. even
though our minds can't fully understand it. Listen, you don't
have to fully understand everything there is to know about God, God
the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. You don't have
to understand everything there is to know about how God works
all things together for good to them that love Him, to them
that are called according to His purpose. Just believe Him. Just believe Him. You ain't never
going to figure it out. Just believe Him. Alright, Lord
bless you. Let's bow together. Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy, reverend, honor be thy matchless name. Father, we thank
you for this one more opportunity to meet together and worship
thee. Father, I beg of you that you take your word preached,
cause it to go forth in the hearts of your people for your glory,
that we might see the glory of Christ our Savior and be given
faith to believe and to rest in him. Father, we thank you
for the faith, for the saving faith that you've given your
people. Father, we pray that you would continue. Call out
your sheep. Use this word preached to give
faith in the hearts of your people. And Father, use the word preached
to keep us faithful, to keep us needing Christ and depending
on him and him alone. For it's in the precious name
of Christ our Savior, for his glory, we pray. Alright, Shawn,
you can leave us in song. If you would, please stand as
we close our service and turn to song number 255, Blessed Assurance. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! Oh, what a foretaste of glory
divine! Heir of salvation, Purchase of
God, Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood. This is my story,
this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story, this is my
song, Praising my Savior all the day long. Perfect submission,
perfect delight. Visions of rapture now burst
on my sight. Angels descending bring from
above Echoes of mercy, whispers of love. This is my story, this
is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story, this is my
song, Praising my Savior all the day long. Perfect submission,
all is at rest. I in my Savior am happy and blessed,
Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness,
lost in His love. This is my story, this is my
song, Praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story,
this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long. so