Well, good evening. If you care
to open your Bibles with me to Psalm 135. Continue looking at
that Psalm this evening. Psalm 135. As you're turning,
let me make a couple of announcements. Brother Gary Holback is improving
slowly but surely. Heather texted me a picture of
him yesterday. And he looks better than I did when I got out of
the hospital this last time this summer. So I was glad to see
that. It seems like he's hopefully
on the road to recovery. And Sue Thacker came through
surgery very well today. They did four bypasses and an
oblation to correct the AFib. The surgery went very well. The
doctor thinks that will take care of her problems, so we're
very thankful for that news. Kevin says she'll be there for
a while recovering, but I guess it's good news we could have
hoped for, so we're thankful. I will read the first 13 verses,
now Psalm 135. Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye
the name of the Lord. Praise him, O ye servants of
the Lord. Ye that stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts
of the house of our God, praise the Lord. For the Lord is good. Sing praises unto his name, for
it is pleasant. For the Lord hath chosen Jacob
unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar treasure. For I
know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all
gods. Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he, in heaven, and earth,
and the seas, and all deep places. He causeth the vapors to ascend
from the ends of the earth. He maketh lightnings for the
rain. He bringeth the wind out of his treasuries. He smote the
firstborn of Egypt, both of man and beast, who sent tokens and
wonders in the midst of thee, O Egypt, upon Pharaoh and upon
all his servants. who smote great nations and slew
mighty kings. Sihon, king of the Amorites,
and Og, king of Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan, and gave
their land for an heritage, and heritage unto Israel his people.
Thy name, O Lord, endureth forever, and my memorial, O Lord, throughout
all generations." We'll end our reading there. Let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven,
Oh, how we thank you that you are God, that you are God above
all, ruling and reigning in everything because you are sovereign over
everything. Father, how thankful we are.
How thankful we are to come before you as God, to offer up our worship,
our praise, our thanksgiving to the God of all the earth.
How thankful we are to bring our petitions, our cares, our
needs, before the God of all the earth who sovereignly provides
for his people. How thankful we are to come before
the God of all the earth to seek comfort for our troubled hearts,
God who can sovereignly comfort the hearts of his people. We're
thankful. And Father, we beg of you this evening that you
would give us an hour of true worship. Speak to us, we pray,
through thy word. Let us see the glory of Christ
our Savior and worship Him in awe and in wonder. Father, we're
thankful for the good report we've had on Sue and on Gary.
Pray your continued hand of healing and mercy be upon them and others,
Father, who need you especially. You know the needs of your people,
and we pray that you'd meet them richly according to the riches
of your mercy and grace and your wisdom. to know what's best.
We pray for the grace and the faith to leave it there. Father,
we pray for our country at this time that you would move in a
mighty way to give us some relief from this pandemic. We pray that
you'd give our leaders much wisdom in how to handle things in a
right way that would promote the peace and prosperity of our
country. All these things we ask and we
give thanks and In praise of your matchless name, in the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ, we pray and give thanks. Amen. Nearer, still nearer, close to
thy heart. Draw me, my Savior, so precious
thou art. Fold me, oh, fold me close to
thy breast. Shelter me safe in that haven
of rest. Shelter me safe in that haven
of rest. Nearer, still nearer, nothing
I bring, Not as an offering to Jesus my King. Only my sinful, now contrite
heart, Grant me the cleansing Thy blood
doth impart Grant me the cleansing Thy blood doth impart Nearer,
still nearer, Lord, to be Thine. Sin with its follies I gladly
resign. All of its pleasures, pomp and
its pride, Give me but Jesus, my Lord, crucified. Give me but Jesus, my Lord, crucified. Nearer, still nearer, while life
shall last, anchor is cast through endless
ages ever to be nearer my Savior still nearer to thee We're still nearer to Thee. Brady, that was just outstanding.
Thank you. Alright, Psalm 135. I titled
the message this evening, The Sovereignty of God. This is one
of my very favorite subjects to preach and to think about.
the sovereignty of God. Now, the sovereignty of God simply
means this. God always does as he will, and
no one can resist him. The sovereignty of God guarantees
the salvation of the people that God determined to save. The sovereignty
of God guarantees the ultimate glorification of God's elect. None of them can fall away from
him. None is able to pluck them from his hand because his hand
is sovereign over all. The sovereignty of God guarantees
the comfort of the hearts of God's people. Even if their bodies
suffer, He can comfort the hearts of His people. The sovereignty
of God is a comforting truth to the hearts of God's people
that they just almost can't hear too often. The sovereignty of
God is the way that Scripture identifies God and differentiates
Him from idols. Idols have mouths, but they speak
not hands, but they handle not feet, but they walk not. The
Bible identifies the God of heaven and earth as the God who is sovereign
over all. Idols always need you to do your
part in order to be saved, in order to accomplish whatever
will that the idol may have. You have to do your will. That's
an idol, not God. No, God's sovereign. God does
as he will. And He saves His people. God
is sovereign. He does as He will for His people
and in His people without any help from them. And they're saved
because God is sovereign. And God is not God unless God
is sovereign. I mean, you talk about a God
that wants to and can't, that's not God. God is not God unless
God is sovereign. God is not God unless He always
does exactly as He pleases. Any other God is an idol that's
not to be feared, that's not to be worshipped. Unless God
is sovereign over all things and does not need me to accomplish
His will, why would I worship Him? And He's got to be sovereign
if He's going to be God. And I'm not trying to be mean
about that now. I'm not trying to be mean about it. I'm trying
to declare to you God as He is so that you'll know Him. So that
you'll come to Him for salvation. So that you'll trust Him to be
your all so that you'll trust your eternal soul to him. This
is God who is sovereign. And he's described here beginning
in verse five. The psalmist says, for I know
that the Lord is great and that our Lord is above all gods. He's
over all idols. Whatsoever the Lord pleased,
that did he in heaven and in earth and the seas and all deep
places. Now that scripture is pretty
plain. You don't understand exactly what the psalmist means there.
God is sovereign everywhere. From heaven to hell and everywhere
in between, God is sovereign. Right now, there are people in
heaven, in high places. You know why they're there? God
willed for them to be there. That's exactly right. And right
now, there are people in hell, in deep places. And you know
why? God did not will their salvation. That's exactly right. You wonder
about people on earth today, why they're doing what they're
doing on land and on sea and what is happening with nature
and everywhere all over this planet. You know why they're
doing what they're doing? What's happening because the
way it's happening? Because God willed for it to
happen exactly this way. That's right. That's what the
sovereignty of God means. If people are doing something
against the will of God, then God's not sovereign. Isn't that
right? If things are happening in nature that are against the
will of God, that the devil did them and God didn't want them
to happen, that means God's not sovereign. God is sovereign. So everything
that's happening in our world today is happening exactly according
to the will of the sovereign God. Now I want to give you a
couple points here about the sovereignty of God from our text
and then show you a few other scriptures. Number one, God sovereignly
rules over nature. The psalmist says in verse seven,
He causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. He
maketh lightnings for the rain. He bringeth the wind out of his
treasuries. Now there is no such thing as Mother Nature. I hope
that that phrase, Mother Nature, is not in our vocabulary. You know, I type out my notes
because I can't read my own handwriting, so I type out my own notes. And
I typed out my notes here, Mother Nature, in Microsoft Word, and
it wanted me to capitalize it, like this is a real person. No,
no, no, no, no. There's no such thing as Mother
Nature. There's no such thing as the
Lord controlling the sunny days and the calm seas and the nice
things that happen to us, but then the devil controls the stormy
days and the tornadoes and hurricanes and, you know. No. God controls
everything that happens in nature. Everything. Because God is sovereign. And who else would you want to
control it? The psalmist here describes the wisdom of God.
It's just a beautiful description of how God works nature. God
causes evaporation in the earth. He causes vapors to rise up to
the clouds to come back down to the earth as rain to water
the earth. God sends a lightning where he
will to help the rain. He sends the lightning for the
rain. You know, lightning is not this
random, uncontrolled force of nature. Lightning is sent by
God exactly, I mean, to the exact point where He intends to send
it. Charles Spurgeon said this, Lightning
is part of the wonderful machinery by which the earth is kept in
fit condition. Now, only God could do that.
Only God could use a force like lightning to keep the earth in
fit condition. That's what God does. And God
brings wind, the psalmist says, from His treasuries. His treasuries. You know, men have treasuries.
What do you store in your treasuries? Gold, silver, precious gems,
things that are precious to us. God has treasuries where He stores
wind to send when He will to help creation, to move clouds,
to bring rain to the earth, to blow pollen around so plants
grow or whatever else, you know, things that wind's supposed to
do, God sends that to the earth from His treasuries. His treasuries. And God does it sovereignly.
God causeth, God maketh, and God bringeth these things. God
does that. But if you look in Isaiah chapter
55, it's good for us to see that God's in control of the things
that are going on in nature. But I'll tell you what's more
important. How God controls nature is a picture of something much
more important than nature. It's a picture of how God sovereignly
brings His Word to His people, to water His people, to give
them life and to make them grow. Look here at Isaiah 55 verse
10. For as the rain cometh down,
and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth
the earth, and maketh it bring forth in bud, that it may give
seed to the sower, and bread to the eater, So shall my word
be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto
me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall
prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. Now, since God is
sovereign, he sends his word out in this earth, just like
he sends rain and lightning and wind out of his treasuries, God
sends his word. And since God's sovereign, that
word is never a failure, never. It always accomplishes the purpose
that God sends it to accomplish. And since God is sovereign, His
people are going to be saved by this Word. Since the Word
never fails now, God is pleased to use His Word to save His people,
to give His people life, to deliver them from the thorns of sin and
bring them into rest. That's what He says next in verse
12. God's word now shall prosper
in the thing we're to our senate for, because that's true, ye
shall go out with joy and shall be led forth with peace. The
mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead
of the thorn, shall come up the fir tree. Instead of the briar,
shall come up the myrtle tree and it shall be to the Lord for
a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. God's
word shall prosper in the things that He sent. It shall give His
people life. It shall deliver them. It shall
give them rest. Then you know what you and I
need to do? Just keep preaching the Word. Just keep preaching,
thus saith the Lord. We need not. Oh, we need not. Intermingle our logic and our
psychological babble to try to make it successful, to try to
get people to believe it and react to it. All we need to do
is just keep preaching, thus saith the Lord. Because the sovereign
God promised this. He's going to bless His Word.
It's going to prosper to the salvation of the souls of His
people and the feeding and the comforting and the strengthening
of the hearts of His people because God's sovereign. All right, now
back in our text. Here's the second thing. God's
sovereignly, sovereignly, saves His people from their sin. Verse
8, Psalm 135. Who smote the firstborn of Egypt,
both of man and beast. Now you know this is talking
about the first Passover when God came through the land of
Egypt and He killed every firstborn in every home where there wasn't
blood on the doorpost. And I'll tell you why. That blood
on that doorpost said there's already been death in this house
tonight. There's no need for another. There's no need for
another death. Justice has already been satisfied here. There's
already been death in this house tonight. There's been the death
of the substitute. A perfect lamb without spot and
without blemish. And the blood has been applied
to the door in faith, saying the substitute is enough. The
substitute's all I need. The death of the substitute is
all I need. And that was done as a picture
of how God sovereignly saves His people from their sin. God
saves his people from their sin by the blood of Christ, the lamb
of God, the perfect spotless lamb who came to this world to
take away the sin of the world by being the substitute for his
people. And he did not fail. He did not
fail. God is sovereign in salvation.
The Lord Jesus Christ did not come to try to save as many people
as possible. He didn't come to to live such
an exemplary life that he'd get as many people as he possibly
could to accept him. He didn't suffer such a horrible,
shameful death so the people would feel sorry for him and
accept him as their personal savior. Christ came to save his
people from their sins. Christ came to save God's elect. He died for God's elect and only
God's elect. Just like that night that the
psalmist is talking about here in Egypt. God wasn't trying to
save every firstborn in Egypt now. He came to save those who
were under the blood. And Christ didn't come to try
to save every son of Adam. He came to save those that the
Father gave Him to save. And that's exactly what He did.
Exactly. Every last one of them is saved. Now that is God being sovereign
in salvation. Saving whom He will. Having mercy
on whom He will have mercy. And Christ came to save those
people that God gave Him by putting them under His sin-atoning blood,
the blood of His sacrifice, and washing them white as snow. And
all of those people shall be saved. They shall be. You need
not doubt it. They shall be saved because God's
offering. He cannot fail to save everybody
that He chose to save and everybody He sent His Son to die for. God sovereignly rules over all
of the earth to guarantee the salvation and the ultimate glorification
of his people. Verse nine, who sent tokens and
wonders into the midst of the old Egypt, upon Pharaoh and upon
all his servants, who smoke great nations and slew mighty kings,
Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, and all
the kingdoms of Canaan, and gave their land for an heritage and
heritage unto Israel, his people. Now, Israel was down in bondage
in Egypt, just exactly like God told Abraham that they would
be. And when the time came that God promised he's going to deliver
his people out of Egypt, there was a problem. There was a problem.
And it looked like an insurmountable problem. Israel was in bondage
to the most powerful nation on earth. There had never been a
nation more powerful than the Egyptians at this time. And Pharaoh,
who ruled that place, was not at all inclined to let his free
labor go. Israel had no military might
to mount up some sort of insurrection and set themselves free. They
had no political influence. They could change the government. This is a dictatorship. Pharaoh,
they thought, was deity. There's no way they could set
themselves free. So God sent what the psalmist calls tokens
and wonders to Egypt. He sent plagues. He sent plagues
that made the Egyptians so miserable, they gladly let their free labor
go. I mean, they just thrust their
free labor out. And they weren't leaving fast
enough, and they gave them their gold and their silvers and their jewels
to get them to leave all the faster. That's how Israel, with
no army, spoiled Egypt. They took all the spoil of Egypt,
just like a conquering army would do. If they could come in and
conquer Egypt, Israel spoiled Egypt, just took the riches of
Egypt out of there with them and they never fired a shot.
Now that's God's sovereignty. God sovereignly set His people
free by His power without ever using any power of man. Now I
can't help but think about this, there's a correlation between
that and the plague that we're under now. Now I have no idea
None whatsoever. Why it is God sent this plague.
But I know he sent it because he's sovereign. He's sovereign
over everything in his creation. And this thing is under the direct
control of the sovereign. And he's not just doing it randomly. He's using it to accomplish his
eternal purpose. Somehow our sovereign God is
using this thing to accomplish his eternal purpose. And I tell
you what, I don't know about you, but me, that lets me just
breathe a little bit easier. I'll wear my mask. I'll social
distance. I'll do different things until this thing comes to its
conclusion. Because you know when it's going
to come to its conclusion? When the Sovereign wills for it to.
I know He's going to use means and vaccines and different things
more than likely, but until that time, it just lets me breathe
a little easier about the change in the world that we've got to
live in. Our God sent this. to accomplish
His purpose. Eric, I ought to be happier about
that, shouldn't I? I really should be. I ought to be happier about
it. If I really, if I believe what I'm really telling you,
I ought to be happy about it. Because God sent this to accomplish
His purpose. That's how Israel walked free
out of Egypt. And when they passed through the wilderness on the
way to the Promised Land, several, we'll look at this some in the
next Psalm, several of these mighty powerful kings and powerful
armies came up and attacked them. And these former slaves had no
military training at all. The only thing that these people
were trained to do was make bricks. That's all they were trained
to do. No military training. And these former slaves defeated
every last one of those mighty kings with all their well-armed,
well-trained armies. They defeated every one of them. And when they came to the Promised
Land, it was time for them to go in. Joshua led them in. Now
they led them into this land that was inhabited. There were
people who lived there. They had homes and jobs and farms. They had their whole life there. And they're not just going to
give up their lands. They're not just going to give up their
houses. Would you? If somebody came in and said,
God told me, take your house and take your farm and take everything
you own and you get out of here, I'm going to live in your house.
eat your food. I'm gonna, you know, harvest
your crop. Would you? I wouldn't. These
people wouldn't either. And these were mighty nations,
strong nations, living in walled cities. And these former slaves,
no military training, no idea how to do a pincer movement or,
you know, whatever military movement, you know, you might have. These
former slaves drove out all of those people who were stronger
than they. Just drove them out. by God's sovereign power. God
sovereignly defeated every enemy by His power without any help
from men. Now, a lot of times, Israel did
send an army into battle. Sometimes the Lord just sent
hornets to drive the people out. But sometimes Israel did send
an army into battle, didn't it? But every battle they won, God
clearly showed them that battle was won by the power of His might,
not theirs. In every battle, Israel lost. Do you know why they lost it?
They went into it with the might and power of man. They didn't
go into it with the Lord. The whole thing depended on the
Lord's sovereign will, His sovereign power every single time. If they depended on their might,
they lost every time. And if they depended on the might
of the Lord, they enjoyed victory every single time. Now all of
that was done to show us that God is sovereign over all men
and over all events in His creation. God sovereignly moves men and
people and events. He just moves them around like
pieces on a chess board. God raises up kings for this
purpose so they'll accomplish His will. And when God's done
with them, He casts them down. And no man, no power of man,
no forces of nature will ever stop God's elect from being saved
and one day entering into the promised land. Entering into
a land of eternal rest. Nobody can stop it. Because God's
the one who's in charge of this whole shit match. You cannot
be defeated. You cannot. You cannot lose your
salvation for this reason. Our God's sovereign. I hope you're
starting to see why I love this subject. The sovereignty of God.
The psalmist here says Whatever the Lord is pleased to do, whatever
it is, that's what He does exactly. Well, would you like to know
what it is that the Lord is pleased to do? Well, Scripture, I don't
know everything, but the Scripture gives us five things that it
pleased God to do. And they've been tied to the
things we've looked at in our text so far. Just very briefly, let
me give you these five things. You can either turn or you can
jot these Scriptures down. Numbers chapter 24. Now this
is what it pleased the Lord to do. It pleased the Lord to bless
His people. Numbers chapter 24, verse 1. And when Balaam saw that it pleased
the Lord to bless Israel, he went not, as at other times,
to seek for enchantments, but he set his face toward the wilderness. Now it pleased the Lord to bless
His people. To bless spiritual Israel. It's
pleased Him to bless them with every spiritual blessing. With
forgiveness of sin, with righteousness, with holiness, with eternal life,
with peace with God. It's pleased God to give His
people every spiritual blessing. And it's pleased the Lord to
give us. This group right here is pleased
the Lord to give us many material, physical blessings too. Aren't
we thankful? The only reason we haven't is
that it pleased the Lord to give them to us. That pleased the
Lord to bless His people. Now I'm telling you what, absolutely
nothing will stop God's people from being blessed. I tell you,
I just get bent out of shape with these false prophets that
I hear and these things that people are just burden that they're
putting on people. They're breaking their backs.
They're doing everything that they can possibly do to turn
folks' eyes away from Christ and send them to hell doing it.
I'm telling you, I get bent out of shape. I get angry. But I
tell you what, not even a powerful false prophet like Balaam, who's
working for a powerful wicked king, could take away the blessing
of God's people. If you want this evening, Here's
a good bedtime story for you. Read the rest, the next verses
after this before you go to bed tonight. And this is what you'll
find. This false prophet Balaam, he couldn't curse Israel. The
king was paying him to curse Israel. He could not, he couldn't
help but bless Israel. He went to curse them and he
blessed them instead. God will use even the wicked
to accomplish his purpose. to bless His people. Because
it's pleased the Sovereign to bless His people. Then they're
going to be blessed. No matter what. Alright, second
look at 1 Samuel chapter 12. 1 Samuel chapter 12. Here's the
second thing. It pleased the Lord to make you
His people. It pleased the Lord to do that.
I've been thinking about that today. overwhelming have pleased
the Lord to make you His people." First Sema chapter 12, verse
22. For the Lord will not forsake
His people for His great namesake, because it hath pleased the Lord
to make you His people. Now this is the most humbling
thing. God who is sovereign over all, in need of nothing, is not
like a human king. You know, anytime a human being
gets any authority, almost always, they do not use that authority,
that power for the good of others. Very, very seldom. It happens
from time to time, but it's rare. And instead of God using His
sovereign power to destroy every son of Adam who's rebelled against
Him, God used His sovereign power to choose to make some of those
people belonged to Him, to be His people. Because it pleased
Him to do it. It pleased Him. It made Him happy.
Now that's the doctrine of election. What a glorious, loving doctrine
that Almighty God would choose to make some of the sons of Adam
to be His people. And I'm looking at some of them
tonight. I'm looking at some of them. The Lord's been pleased
to make you His people. Doesn't that humble you? It ought
to. It ought to humble us. A man
told me one time, he said, you all believe in election. He said,
you forget the word. He said, you think you're better
than other people. You think you're more special
than other people. Somebody that believes in election,
that God chose me. No, no, they're not proud. They're
humbled. Humbled. If you're here tonight,
you believe God. You belong to God. You're one
of God's own. I'm telling you this, it's not
because you did something right. You who believe God, you know
why you believe Him? You know why you belong to God? You know
why you trust Christ? It's because God was pleased to make you His
people. That's exactly right. It's all
because of God's electing love and His electing grace. And the
only response that you can have to that is, thank you, Lord.
Thank you, Lord. Why me? Can't we say with Mephibosheth,
why me? Why me? Why would she be so merciful
to such a dead dog as me? There's just one reason. It pleased
the Lord to do it. Thank you, Lord. Alright, now
look at Isaiah chapter 53. Here's the third thing. Now, the Lord does as He pleases.
He could have pleased to do anything. But this is what it pleased the
Lord to do thirdly. It pleased the Lord to bruise.
Christ our substitute. Isaiah 53, verse 9. And he made
his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, because,
and that word is though, though he had done no violence, neither
was any deceit in his mouth, yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He hath put him to grief. When
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days, and
the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper. in his hand. That pleased
the Lord to bruise him, and that pleasure is going to prosper
in the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ
was the only perfect man to ever live. He was perfectly righteous.
Never thought, he never did anything sinful, he never thought anything
sinful, he never desired to do anything sinful. He perfectly
pleased his Father. You think of that. Yet, Isaiah
says, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. crush him, to humiliate
him, to crucify him in a cursed death. Now why? Why would it please the father
to bruise his son like that? Because the Lord Jesus Christ
is the sinner substitute. That's why. The father made his
son sin for his people. Now when he was made sin, he
was made guilty of the sin of his people. That sin became His
sin, even though He never committed any sin, that sin became His
sin. He was made to be the mass of
all of the sin of all of His people in one place at one time
upon Calvary Street. And it pleased the justice of
the Father to put Him to death. It pleased His justice. Now that
is how real the transfer of sin to Christ was. It made the Father
happy. It pleased Him. It pleased His
justice. It satisfied His justice to put
His Son to death when Christ was made sin for us. But I'll
tell you what else. It pleased the Father to make
His people perfect, righteous through the sacrifice of Christ.
He hath made Him sin for us who knew no sin, that what? That
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. You see, the Father
can only accept what's righteous. He can only accept what's perfect.
So He chose a people. He sovereignly chose a people.
It pleased Him to make you His people. And then He made His
people what pleases Him. He made them righteous. And He
accomplished that by the death of our substitute. Brother Todd
and I, I've heard him make this statement a number of times.
I think it's very good. He said the cross is the most
God-like thing God's ever done. It pleased the Father to bruise
Him. The cross was an act of God. And that, the sacrifice of Christ
on the cross, it pleased God's justice. And at the same time,
it pleased God's mercy and God's grace for His people too. It
pleased the Lord to bruise Him as our substitute. Alright, now
look at Galatians chapter 1. Here's the fourth thing. It pleased
the Lord to reveal His Son in His people. Galatians chapter
1, verse 15. But when it pleased God, who
separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace
to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the
heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood. There's
no need to confer flesh and blood because it had pleased the Lord,
pleased God to reveal His Son in me, Paul said. Now it's pleased
the Father, we've seen this, to save a people. It's pleased
Him to take this people, make them His people. The Son came
and redeemed those people by His blood because it pleased
the Lord to produce Him. Now Almighty God is not going
to let something so wonderful be done in a corner and be done
in secret. No, he's going to let his people
know what he's done for them. And God, the Holy Spirit comes
in power to reveal Christ. He doesn't just reveal Christ
to you, although he does, he reveals Christ to you. But the
apostle says here, he reveals Christ in God's people, in God's
people. That's the new birth. In the
new birth, there's a birth of a new man. This new man, this
new nature, is made in the image of Christ. And that new man,
that new nature is the same nature that's in every believer. Because
God, the Holy Spirit put him there, caused him to be born
there. And there can be no salvation
without this new birth. See, the flesh cannot inherit,
cannot love, cannot understand, cannot enter the kingdom of God. The flesh cannot do it. We cannot
enter the Kingdom of God unless there's a new man born that belongs
there. The flesh doesn't belong there. Have you ever been somewhere
and you just knew, I don't belong here? I don't belong here. I
used to go with work to the SEC basketball tournament every year.
We got this lanyard thing and they let you go different places.
And our lanyard one year looked exactly like the media's. Exactly. And so I saw this meeting
room, told my buddies, let's go in there. Let's go in there.
We sat down at this table, Dale Brown. He was the former coach
of the LSU Tigers. And we sat there and ate lunch
with Dale Brown. And this guy kept saying, we
don't belong here. Let's get out of here. Let's get out of
here. We don't belong here. I said, I'm going to stay here
and eat. We don't belong here. And he was as nervous as he could
enjoy that food for nothing. We just eat. We don't belong
here. The flesh doesn't belong there. It cannot enter the Kingdom
of God. So there's got to be a new man
born who belongs there. Who's got citizenship there.
Who's holy and who's righteous. He belongs there. Thank God. It pleased Him to cause His people
to be born again. To reveal Christ in us. That's
a gift of God, isn't it? The wages of sin is death. That's
what we deserve. But it pleased God. to give his
people life, spiritual life, eternal life. And that's the
good hope that every believer has of entering glory. It's Christ
in you. That's the hope of glory. All
right, here's the last thing. Look at Colossians chapter one.
Colossians chapter one. It pleased the Lord to put everything
in Christ. Colossians 1 verse 19. For it pleased the Father that
in Him should all fullness dwell. It pleased the Father to put
everything His people would ever need in His Son, in the Lord
Jesus Christ. But more than that, it pleased
the Father to make Christ to be everything His people It's
not like Christ is the container and everything we need is in
the container. Christ is everything we need. The gospel is simple, isn't it? But it's so complex. It's so
deep. The human mind cannot understand
it. So God made it simple for us.
He put it all in one place. Everything you need, look to
one place. Look to one person. It's all
everything you need is all in one place. Don't go here, there,
and yonder. It's all in one place. Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption are all found in Christ because He is our wisdom. He is our righteousness. He is
our sanctification. He personally is our redemption.
Do you need life? Life is found in Christ because
He is our life. Do you need peace with God? Christ
is our peace. Look to Him. Go to Him. Forgiveness
of sin is found in Christ because He is our forgiveness. He purchased
it. Whatever it is you need, go to
Christ. It's all there. The Father has
made it so simple, even you and I can understand this. It's all
in Christ. Now whatever it is that you need,
go to Him to get it. He's got it. Now that's what
the Lord has been pleased to do. And more than ever before,
you know what I want? I want the Lord to do all of
His pleasure. Don't you? Isn't that a blessing
to us? And the more I hear about what the Lord has been pleased
to do, the more pleased I am with it. By God's grace, the
more pleased I am with it. Alright, that's what the Lord's
been pleased to do. Aren't we glad God's sovereign?
Aren't we glad? Alright, let's bow together in
prayer. Our Father, oh how we thank You
that You are God. that You're sovereign over all
things. Lord, You promised that Your
Word would not return unto You void. The best that we know how,
that You've enabled us by Your Spirit. We've heard Your Word
preached tonight. And Father, I pray that You would
not allow Your Word to be heard in vain. But Father,
cause it to accomplish Your purpose of mercy and grace for Your people. Accomplish a purpose of comforting
and strengthening the hearts of your people. Cause it to accomplish
your purpose to enable us to see the glory of Christ our Savior
and to fall at His feet, worshiping and praising His matchless name.
Now, Father, all these things, how thankful we are, how thankful
we are at Your sovereign. As we go back home, we pray You'd
watch over us and lead and guide. And as we go back out in the
world tomorrow, Father, go with us And cause this word that's
been preached to be in our heart, to go with us, to face the world and our responsibilities
one more time while we look to Christ our Savior. It's in His
precious name we pray and give thanks. Amen. Our Lord has sovereignly
sent a little bit of snow starting a little bit ago, so y'all be
careful, okay? Y'all be careful going home.